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ALSACE 

THROUGHOUT THE AGES 

BY 

CHARLES EUGENE RUDOLPH KAEPPELIN 

Physicist — Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur 
Decorated for Bravery 



Done into English by 

MARY LOUISE HENDEE 

Translator c/»THE SIMPLE LIFE" 

AND OTHER BOOKS 



PUBLISHED BY 

MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES MILLER, A. M. 

A T 

FRANKLIN, PENNSYLVANIA 
1908 



^°\ 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
One Copy Received 

FEB 11 1909 

_ OoDvn?m Entry 
CLASS a_ KXc. No. 



Copyright, 1908 
.By CHARLES MILLER 



Printed and Bound by The General Manifold and Printing Company, Franklin, Pa. 



T O 

His ALSATIAN FELLOW COUNTRYMEN 

IN THE 

UNITED STATES 
This Book is Dedicated 

BY 

Major General Charles Miller, A. M. 

Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur 



AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the present publication is to set 
forth the prehistorical, geographical, historical and 
ethnographical facts which unite Alsace to France, 
in accordance with natural and social laws. 

In defiance of these laws, Germany has wrested 
Alsace-Lorraine from France, and has dealt its peo- 
ple the crudest of blows, in depriving a part of them 
of the land of their birth, the others, of that of their 
choice. 

Being one of the first fifteen hundred thousand 
victims of this act of violence, I wish, even to the 
end of my life, to protest against its iniquity; and 
that is why, at the age of eighty years, I offer this 
book to the judgment of my compatriots of France 
and Alsace. 

It contains, with reference to the common origin 
of the French and Alsatian territories and the primi- 
tive people inhabiting them, certain scientific ideas 
put into popular form for the use of the general 
public and the younger generation. Beginning 
with historic times, it enumerates the chief events 
which succeeded one another in the regions between 
the Rhine and the sea, from the epoch of their in- 
vasion and occupation by the Celts, through the 
Gallo-Roman and Gallo-Frankish periods. 

After setting forth how Alsace became separated 
from the French Empire created by Charlemagne, 
in the partition of states among his grandsons, it 
gives an account of the autonomous conditions un- 



VI AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

der which,_ for seven and a half centuries, it was 
held under the suzerainty of the German Emperors, 
and then the circumstances of its restoration to 
France, of which it became, especially from the time 
of the Revolution of 1789, one of the most import- 
ant and patriotic provinces. 

To these various phases of the story of Alsace, 
are appended episodes, scenes, or little personal 
dramas, whose object is to characterize the epochs 
to which they belong. 

The book ends with a synopsis of the events which 
took place in Alsace from the reign of Louis XIV. 
to 1 87 1. The aim of it all is to show: 

That in prehistoric times, Alsace was united to 
France by the formation of the territories of the 
two, and the identity of the races inhabiting them: 

That the destiny of the two remained one and 
inseparable during all the centuries which elapsed 
between the arrival of the Celts and the cession of 
Alsace to Louis the German : 

That while Alsace was under the suzerainty of 
the German Emperors, but without incorporation 
in any German state, it continued to be populated 
by the native Gallo-Frankish race, although in the 
end the people had dropped the use of the Romance 
tongue, to take up the idiom of the neighboring 
people across the Rhine: 

That after their return to France, two centuries 
and a half ago, the Alsatians never ceased to give 
her evidences of their patriotism: 

And lastly, that both the natural and historical 
facts prove that the Rhine and the Rhine only can 
properly serve as the boundary between France and 
Germany. 



TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



In having put into English for the purpose of dis- 
tribution among his friends, this work of his octo- 
genarian compatriot, with its unique point of view, 
its quaintly charming tales of early times, and its 
fervent patriotism, General Miller is certainly add- 
ing very gracefully to the countless tributes of Al- 
satian spiritual loyalty to France. 

The Alsatian, though no longer under French 
government, true to his blood, is a Frenchman in 
his ideals; and ideals are things the civil authorities 
cannot coerce. 

Throughout France's struggles for liberty, from 
the Revolution down, Alsace furnished her with 
some of her greatest leaders — Ney, Kleber, Lefebvre 
— and most devoted soldiers of the line; men of 
intelligence, humanity, generosity and quick re- 
sponsiveness. Such characteristics as these, hun- 
dreds of thousands of Alsatians have taken into 
exile, and such characteristics, together with some- 
what of the quality that urged the great leaders to 
their achievements, the donor of this book brought 
in boyhood into the free atmosphere of America. 
That he early threw himself into her activities and 
entered her military life; that he has become the 
head of a tremendous business, has been largely in- 
strumental in building up a city, administered in its 
government, provided for the further education of 
its workers and gathered together among them a 
famous Bible class — one of the largest in the world ; 

VII 



VIII TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 

that he became a Major-General in the National 
Guard of his State, and has been made a Master of 
Arts and Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, in 
acknowledgment of his 'eminent services to indus- 
try and commerce — all this is the natural and very 
suggestive story of this son of two lands so alike 
in aspirations, so different in fate — a story which it 
has seemed to the translator should find at least this 
very small place in "Alsace Throughout the Ages." 




ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



FIRST VIEW. 

The Ballons d'Alsace, one of the three oldest areas of 
France. — Fire, air, earth and water. — The universal sea 
and partial seas. — Vosges, Jura, Pyrenees and Alps. — 
First living things and succeeding generations. — European 
floods — Glacial period and glaciers of the Vosges. — The 
earth's present crust. — Stability of temperature. — Future 
of our solar system; has it always existed? 

Alsace helped to form one of the three nucleal 
areas of the territory of France. In order to estab- 
lish this fact, we must mount well up the ages, into 
the infinity of time and space. 

The planetary system to which the earth belongs 
has not always existed in its present form. The 
stupendous amount of matter composing it, was 
once all confounded in a fathomless chaos, volatil- 
ised, seething, blazing in effulgent splendor; it was 
a nebula, isolated from the other worlds dissemin- 
ated through space, into which it was radiating its 
light and its heat. 

Millions of cycles passed while this mass of ig- 
neous gases and vapors, obedient to the laws of 
cooling bodies, and to forces within itself, was 
transformed through partial condensation and con- 
centration or by centrifugal projections, into our 
present solar system, the sun in the center, the 
planets gravitating around it, and their satellites 
revolving about them. 

The world was made! It was then an incan- 



2 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

descent ball, in complete fusion, swathed in dense 
layers of such of its nebulous matter as the heat 
still held in that state. Gradually, as the heat de- 
creased, the enveloping vapors condensed and were 
deposited upon the surface of the globe, adding to 
the thickness of the initial crust which this same 
decrease in heat had already produced there. Last 
of all, the vapors of water became liquified, and 
after the lapse of other long cycles the earth lay 
entirely submerged in a uniform ocean of hot water, 
which held countless minerals in solution, and was 
enwrapped in an atmosphere now greatly purified 
by the giving up of so many vapors. 

These superimposed layers of water and air were 
yet a long time in clarifying through the discharge 
of the foreign matter mixed with them — the atmos- 
phere by letting it fall and melt away in the uni- 
versal ocean, and the ocean by depositing it on the 
surface crust below. 

This twofold purification went on with exceeding 
slowness, for the struggle was long and formidable 
between the air and the sea, and between the sea 
and the earth's crust, still burning hot from its con- 
tact with the enormous furnace which its thin layer 
of solid matter scarce held in bound. The fires 
within either kept, this fragile new crust in perpet- 
ual agitation, or else violently rent it; while the 
heaving crust, in its turn, caused frightful commo- 
tions in the enveloping sea, and again, the sea filled 
the air with masses of vapor, and lashed it into un- 
imaginable tempests. 

During one of these prodigious combats between 
the water without and the fire within, the earth's 
crust was torn asunder in that section of the globe 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 3 

where France now lies, and from the heart of the 
universal sea there emerged islands, whose granitic 
masses formed to the westward certain prominent 
points in Normandy and Brittany, toward the cen- 
ter a part of Auvergne, and eastward the first peaks 
of the Vosges, the two Ballons d' Alsace, at the 
southern extremity of the range. 

No French soil, therefore, is more ancient than 
Alsace, and in only two other sections of the coun- 
try is there any soil as old. 

Meanwhile, the struggle between fire and water 
went on through the earth's crust, which was con- 
tinually growing thicker from the consolidation of 
particles within and the superposition of deposits 
without. As its powers of resistance increased, the 
solid envelope of the burning sphere yielded less 
readily to assaults from the molten mass it bounded ; 
at the same time, when these interior forces accu- 
mulated to such a degree as to be able to overcome 
the resistance of the crust, it was so much the more 
violently disrupted and displaced, rising in some re- 
gions and sinking in others. The original uniform- 
ity of its surface was destroyed, and its inequalities 
now broke the perfect spheroid of the universal sea, 
dividing it into numerous shallow partial seas, one 
of which, the Jurassic, bathed the foot of the ear- 
liest Vosges. 

After the Vosges, the Pyrenees rose to the sur- 
face, then the Jura, and finally the latest and most 
imposing groups of the Alps, while the Vosges 
chain widened, lengthened, and built itself up, tier 
on tier, out of porphyry, syenite, quartz, and es- 
pecially great masses of both red and grey sand- 
stone and calcareous rocks. 



4 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

The waters of the seas and lakes, which at differ- 
ent times had covered that part of the earth's sur- 
face that was to become France, were in the end 
driven back into the Atlantic, to serve as the bound- 
ary on the west, as the Pyrenees did on the south, 
the Alps and Jura on the southeast, and the Vosges 
on the east. And now, just as we said earlier that 
the earth was made, we may say that France was 
made. 

Before this result was reached, however, the re- 
gions she was to occupy had passed through many 
and diverse phases. In those partial seas which long 
overspread the territory, the earliest living things 
came into being, — algae and other sea weeds among 
plants, and among animals, shell fish and crusta- 
ceans. 

At this time, the whole earth possessed a uni- 
formly warm temperature, the same at the poles 
and the equator, and incapable of variation, pro- 
tected as it was from solar influence by the density 
of the earth's atmosphere, still heavy, gloomy and 
opaque. 

When the waters and air had sufficiently cleared, 
to the first inhabitants of the seas were added fishes 
and huge aquatic reptiles, of which latter the icthy- 
osaurus and the plesiosaurus are the types most 
commonly known. These animals frequented the 
waters south of the early Vosges. 

All the land which had then emerged upon the 
surface of the globe, bore a luxuriant vegetation of 
horsetails, lycopods and ferns of immense, size, 
whose debris, buried by the successive transforma- 
tions in the earth's surface, is found to-day in the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES 5 

form of coal deposits. Coal lands were thus formed 
at both extremities of the Vosges. 

At length, through the continued purification of 
the air, the earth began to receive the impression 
of the sun's rays, and to be subject to the influences 
of day and night, the seasons, and differences of 
temperature. 

Now the first birds and mammals appeared. The 
earliest among these latter were in form very much 
like the tapirs and the roe-deer of our time. They 
were succeeded by a varied series of herbivores, 
ending in the mastodons and mammoths, those an- 
cient models of our modern elephants. 

The great number of animals living upon plants, 
offered abundant prey to those which live on flesh, 
so that the carnivores made their appearance shortly 
after the first of the herbivores. Among the chief 
species were the cave lion, the cave tiger, the cave 
bear, the hyena, wolves, jackalls and foxes. The 
earliest men were contemporary with the most re- 
cent of these animals. 

While these various generations of living things 
were succeeding one another, Europe was subjected 
to two great cataclysms known as floods, and prior 
to the one commonly called — after the fashion of 
Moses — the flood, which was occasioned by the rise 
of the great chain that is a continuation in Asia of 
the Caucasus. The North of Europe was ravaged 
by a deluge caused by the upheaval of the Scandi- 
navian Mountains, and the south of it by another, 
caused by the rise of the great Alpine group. The 
waters projected over Europe by these two formid- 
able commotions, laid mountains low, tunneled out 
valleys, and covered the plains with an immense 



6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES 

deposit of boulders, mud, sand and drift of all 
kinds, leaving in Alsace, at the foot of the Vosges, 
considerable deposits of loess, a peculiar mixture of 
clay, chalk, quartz sand, mica sand and oxide of 
iron. 

At the end of this period of prodigious upheavals, 
the Vosges had attained their present dimensions 
and form, and together with the fine plain which 
extends from their base to the middle of the valley 
where the Rhine flows, made a still more complete 
separation between France and Germany. 

All this European area now enjoyed a warm and 
humid climate, favorable to a luxuriant vegetation. 
Oaks, elms, alders, and the other species of our 
modern trees, filled its vast and richly timbered 
forests, and in the regions they left bare, stretched 
endless grassy prairie lands. 

Across this territory with its magnificent forests 
and savannas, there ranged in great herds the mam- 
moth, the rhinoceros, two species of ox called au- 
rochs and urus, horses, and a great number of 
smaller animals, their happy existence troubled only 
by the attacks of cave tigers, hyenas, wolves, and 
other beasts of prey, or of eagles and falcons and 
the great horned owl. The destruction of the mul- 
titude of animals and plants that had perished in 
the two European floods seemed thus to be well 
atoned' for, when there came a new catastrophe 
quite as disastrous as the other in point of extent 
and duration. 

From a cause which no one as yet has been able 
to determine, there occurred a sudden glacial cold, 
extending from the pole to the meridional sections 
of Europe, a cold so instantaneous in its arrival, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. / 

that within the last hundred years there have been 
found buried in the snow and ice of Siberia, per- 
fectly preserved bodies of the mammoth and the 
rhinoceros of this time, which had been so rapidly 
prisoned that there was not the least trace of putre- 
faction about them. 

The mountain heights were weighted down with 
immense glaciers, which descended through the val- 
leys to the snow-clad plains. A few intermediate 
plateaux alone preserved their forests, and served 
as refuge for the animals that survived the great 
disaster. 

Just as it is in our own time with the glaciers of 
the Alps and the other mountains whose tops rise 
above the line of perpetual snow, so it was with 
those of the glacial period; yielding to their own 
weight, and to the pressure of the continual freez- 
ing at their summits, they glided over the sides of 
the valleys, breaking away boulders and rock 
masses, and transporting them often for consider- 
able distances, meanwhile planing, polishing and 
grooving the rocks which resisted their onward 
movement. We find traces of this action in stone 
quarries, in erratic boulders, and in striated, pol- 
ished and sheep-back rocks left along the courses 
of old glaciers. One of the chief of these glaciers 
in the Alps, descended as far as the upper course of 
the Rhine, while in the Vosges, two glaciers re- 
markable for their size were the one extending from 
the Ballon of Guebwiller into the valley of Saint- 
Amarin, and the one in the valley of the Moselle, 
which ended a little way above Remiremont. The 
glacial period closed as it had begun, without any 
known cause, and organic life took up again the 
tenor of its way. 



8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Since this geological epoch, there have been none 
of those great cataclysmic disturbances which once 
overturned and transformed the entire typography 
of the earth. The action of the interior fires is no 
longer apparent save in limited areas and under pe- 
culiar conditions, — in earthquakes, volcanic erup- 
tions, and certain partial elevations or subsidences 
of land. The ocean levels remain constant, and 
only rarely do we even find, at some points along 
their coasts, the slow elevation or depression of 
deltas. Yet the earth's crust has but a slight thick- 
ness, of about sixty kilometers, corresponding to 
no more than the two-hundred-and-sixty-fifth part 
of the diameter of the molten globe it envelops. 

Furthermore, it has been shown that from the 
earliest historic times, the mean temperature over 
the earth's surface has not varied. Among the ob- 
servations made in determining the fact, is the co- 
existence of the vine and the palm in certain coun- 
tries of the Orient. The vine cannot live in regions 
where the temperature remains for any length of 
time above twenty-five or thirty degrees centigrade; 
while the palm perishes where the temperature is 
continually below that mean. But these two plants 
are known to have lived together for three thousand 
years, in Judea and other eastern lands with such 
a temperature. So the earth's surface has neither 
increased nor decreased in heat for thirty centuries. 

This stability is due to the fact that the earth 
receives from the sun as much heat as it loses by 
radiation, and it will be maintained as long as the 
sun preserves its present thermal state. But if the 
solar heat should diminish, that radiant star too 
would pass through the phases which the earth has 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. O, 

undergone; eventually it would grow dim, be in- 
crusted, and after ages upon ages, it would become 
solid, dark and cold, while long before this end had 
been reached, the planets about it would have suf- 
fered the same fate, and with the sun would have 
become invisible in space. 

Is it in this way that cetrain stellar worlds whose 
disappearance has been established by astronomers, 
have found their end ? It has in fact been observed, 
that among the myriads of suns which under the 
name of fixed stars make up our firmament, and 
whose number is surely infinite, though we can 
know only those visible through our telescopes, 
some disappear, while others come suddenly into 
view. What is this that is going on in the three 
infinities of time, space and worlds? And what is 
to be thought of the assurance with which we some- 
times hear it affirmed that the universe has always 
been what it is to-day? 

But without calling to witness these stars which 
come to their birth and die in the celestial fields 
open to man's science, and limiting ourselves 
to the consideration of our own particular system, 
so small and so humble in the three boundless im- 
mensities of which we have been speaking, we are 
forced to recognize the fact that this system had a 
definite beginning, and was made at a definite time. 

In fact, as we have already said, its present state 
is the result of conditions to which its original mat- 
ter has been subjected. By the laws which govern 
the cooling of a heated body in a medium of a lower 
temperature than itself, however hot that body and 
however cold the space about it, a certain time is 
necessary for the operation; but it needs only a 



10 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

certain time, and this time has necessarily a begin- 
ning and an end. 

For our solar system the end — as yet — is its 
present state, the heat which the planets receive 
from the sun equalizing the loss of their own; but 
the commencement of the cooling of our original 
nebula — where is that? It also must have its place 
in time; this cooling cannot have begun with in- 
finity, since infinity has no beginning. 

However many millions of centuries, therefore, 
the original matter of our solar system has required 
for arriving at its present thermal condition and as- 
suming its present form, this time must have had 
a point of departure in eternity, and this matter a 
precise moment of origin. 

A solitary objection may be opposed to this state- 
ment. In accordance with the known laws of the 
transformation of heat into motion and motion into 
heat, the shock of a chance collision between two 
stellar worlds, would produce an amount of heat, 
sufficiently great to cause them to pass again into 
a nebulous state, when they would once more begin 
the series of phases we have just been describing. 

But, considering the admirable laws of celestial 
mechanics, may we admit that two stellar worlds 
could collide in space? Assuredly not. The only 
occurrence of this order that we may suppose pos- 
sible, is the impact of a comet against some sun 
into which it would sink with scarcely a ripple, or 
against some planet, to which it could give no vital 
injury, whatever surface commotions it might pro- 
duce. 

We may therefore repeat our contention that the 
original matter of that solar system to which the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 1 

earth belongs, has not always existed, but was 
formed in space, at a given moment; and we may 
ask, whence did it come? Matter not being able to 
arise of itself out of nothing, must have been drawn 
out of it by some more powerful cause of which it 
is only the effect. 

Our minds cannot rise to the conception of a Su- 
preme Essence, disposing at will of space, eternity, 
and worlds, any more than they can rise to a con- 
ception of these three infinities; but are we not re- 
duced to a like inability in regard to subjects more 
nearly within our grasp; since though we know 
perfectly well their properties and mode of action, 
we have no account to offer of the true nature of 
heat, light, or electricity, of the expansive power of 
gases, of the cohesion of solids, or of gravitation 
and weight ? 

In our powerlessness to fathom these profound 
mysteries, let us simply recall the fact, that as men 
have advanced in intelligence and knowledge, they 
have passed from belief in the fetich of the savage 
to belief in the idol of the barbarian ; then to that in 
the numerous divinities of the civilized nations of 
antiquity, and have now reached the point where 
they put their faith in one God, the sovereign Mas- 
ter of all Nature. 



12 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



SECOND VIEW. 

Age of the mammoth, of primitive man, of rough stone. — 
Origin of the human race. — The dawn of humanity. 

In the long protracted time during which Europe 
suffered the terrible but transitory catastrophes of 
the two partial floods and the glacial period, Alsace, 
like the rest of that part of what we now call the 
Old World, was covered with fertile plains and 
vast stretches of forest, rich in all sorts of trees and 
plants analogous to those existing in our own time. 

It was then inhabited by the mammoth, a great 
elephant with long, backward-curving tusks, a 
wooly coat, and a bushy mane running the length 
of its back; by the two-horned rhinoceros, the hip- 
popotamus, and those great animals of the ox tribe, 
the aurochs and urus ; by deer with gigantic* ant- 
lers, undersized horses, reindeer, and numbers of 
smaller herbivorus animals. 

In the midst of this peaceable population, huge 
species of tigers, bears, hyenas, wolves and jackals 
made incessant and easy depredations. Numerous 
birds enlivened the woods, the plains, and the bor- 
ders of the streams, having nothing to fear but the 
small carnivores, and the eagles, owls, falcons and 
smaller birds of prey. 

Nature thus diversified and exuberant, was now 
made complete by the advent of man. 

To establish the existence of this primitive man, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 3 

antediluvian or prehistoric, as he is called, we shall 
point out only a few general facts. While the 
bones found in some of the caves, lairs of beasts, 
and rocky fissures containing relics of this age, were 
plainly accumulated by beasts or washed up by tor- 
rents, in other caves of the mountains or hillsides, 
animal bones have been found cleft open their whole 
length, together with human bones and implements 
hewn out of rough flint — knives, saws, axes, arrow- 
heads and spear heads, some of which had appar- 
ently been equipped with handles of wood or bone. 

At some points, piles of the shells of edible sea 
animals, and here and there traces of a hearth, also 
attest the presence of man's toil, and there have 
been discovered mortuary caves, sealed by stone 
slabs, and containing human bones. Elsewhere verit- 
able manufactories of the different flint instruments 
have been unearthed. 

Among all these relics of the age of primitive 
man, found buried in strata underneath those upon 
which we live to-day, the most important are com- 
plete human skulls, the cranium, facial bones and 
jaws entire. In the valley of the Rhine, but on the 
German side, a French inventor, M. Aime Boue, 
found, in 1823, a fragment of a human skull buried 
in the loess, whose formation dates back to the de- 
luge caused by the upheaval of the final and greater 
groups of the Alps ; and in Alsace, in the region of 
Eguisheim, not far from Colmar, from the same 
loess, Dr. Fandel picked up, thirty years ago, a skull 
of the same nature. 

The anatomical study of fossil bones belonging 
to the first human beings that inhabited Europe, has 
resulted in establishing the fact that these men were 



14 .ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

short, stocky, and strong limbed, resembling in 
height, build and physiognomy the modern Samo- 
yards and Esquimoux. Their appearance in Eu- 
rope, like so many other natural phenomena, is a 
mystery about which many contending opinions have 
arisen. 

One of these opinions, which dates from our own 
century, considers all living beings to be the success- 
ive and progressive results of an initial material 
movement. This theory may be summed up as fol- 
lows: 

By virtue of molecular attraction, and under cer- 
tain peculiar chance conditions, particles of matter 
may so unite as to form cells, whose juxtaposition 
and accretion make the basis of an organic tissue. 
Through the action of a new cause, the vital force, 
this primitive tissue develops into a rudimentary liv- 
ing germ, which terminates this series of evolutions 
by a being — plant or animal — with the simplest and 
most elementary organism possible. 

Among these elementary beings, there will be ac- 
cidentally produced, in time, one or several which 
are more nearly perfect and stronger than the others, 
and thus fitted to produce a species more highly or- 
ganized than that from which they sprang. By the 
application of this hypothesis to all the phases of ex- 
istence among organized beings, the conclusion is 
reached that all beings which have lived and all 
which now live on the earth, exist as the result of 
successive transformations and ameliorations; thus 
from the first germ of the alga to the oak, from 
the first mollusk down to man, the countless species 
of organized beings which have existed and which 
do exist, are nothing but the result of a series of re- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I 5 

peated and chance metamorphoses, that have been 
ages upon ages in taking place. 

If this has been the way of things, how does it 
happen that these transformations are no longer go- 
ing on, but that from the earliest historic times, not 
the slightest transgression of the law of the invari- 
ability of species has been detected — a law which at 
most admits of the production of certain varieties, 
and, more rarely, of hybrids, incapable of reproduc- 
tion? 

Under the hypothesis we are considering, man 
would spring from those animals which his physical 
type most closely resembles. But even here the re- 
semblance is much more apparent than real. In- 
deed, it is almost destroyed by differences of the 
cranium, jaws and limbs ; but were it even more 
complete than it appears, it would be only the more 
difficult to comprehend how in the case of the ape 
the functioning of the organs of thought is so 
wretchedly inferior to the marvelous results of the 
same action in the brain of man. Unquestionably, 
like most of the higher animals, the ape is suscep- 
tible of education ; but it is only under the volition 
of man that its intelligence becomes capable of 
progress; left to itself, it remains undeveloped and 
without self-consciousness, knowing nothing more 
than to repeat again and again the actions demanded 
by the needs of its existence; while the mind of 
man constantly develops and improves, has the abil- 
ity to invent and to arise to the conception of the 
highest abstractions, and by the light of the torch 
of Science, dominates all nature. 

The transformation of the ape into man, does 
not therefore consist solely in certain modifications 



1 6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

of the physical structure, and to effect it would 
have required the impossible prodigy of bridging 
the abyss which separates the intellectual and moral 
faculties of the one from the intellectual and moral 
faculties of the other. 

A very casual observation of the habits of ani- 
mals is sufficient to show that they do not rear 
those of their young which are born deformed or 
sickly. How then should a couple of quadrumana 
— gibbons, chimpanzees or fierce gorillas, — have 
nurtured the feeble being, born of them, it is true, 
but without hairy covering for its naked skin, dis- 
figured by a high and wide brow and a prominent 
chin, with' fore limbs too short and hind limbs too 
straight and too long, too large heels, fingers al- 
most inflexible, and without opposable thumbs? 
The mother herself would have repelled it and aban- 
doned it, while the father would probably have de- 
stroyed it with tooth and nail. If, however, by 
some strange chance the frail creature had escaped 
abandonment or infanticide, its parents would not 
have been able to protect it against the dangers 
threatening its infancy, since it could not have 
bounded with them from limb to limb, or even have 
climbed the trees in which they lived. Further- 
more, would not all these strange and exceptional 
circumstances need to be repeated at many adjacent 
points, if the new types which owed them their ex- 
istence were to serve as the stock of a new race? 

So it seems to bristle with numerous and insur- 
mountable difficulties — this hypothesis which would 
make the human race descend — or ascend, if you 
will — from some species of simian, and would have 
us look upon ourselves as cousins germane of the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. \J 

monkey tribe, and relatives more or less remote of 
all the other animals. 

But if the earliest human beings did not owe their 
origin to spontaneous formations and transforma- 
tions, whence then did those come of whom we find 
traces everywhere in Europe? Did they, in accord- 
ance with the religious belief of the Israelites, de- 
scend from a single ancestor created in the Garden 
of Eden? In that case, they must have degenerated 
greatly from that beautiful pair, Adam and Eve, 
fashioned by the very hand of God; and have wan- 
dered far from the divine abode inhabited by their 
forebears in Asia. Coming from the region of that 
abode of felicity, where their ancestors held con- 
verse with God and His angels, how had it been 
possible for them to fall to such a state that they 
must certainly have been inferior to many island 
tribes of the Pacific? 

This degeneracy and this distant emigration ap- 
pear trifling matters, however, in comparison with 
all that the descendants of Adam must have done 
and undergone, in order to people the whole earth 
with such a diversity of races — white, black, reel, 
yellow and brown, so unlike one another physically, 
mentally and even morally. 

If the primitive people of Europe did not have 
their origin in one of these two sources, they must 
have been formed in this portion of the globe — as, 
of course, other primitive people in other localities 
— by the omnipotent will of a Supreme Being, in 
accordance with whose laws the whole earth 
throughout the ages, has been peopled with count- 
less species of plants and animals. 

In whatever manner they may have first entered 



1 8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

into the world, the aborigines of Europe had to en- 
dure many hardships. Their denta 1 and intestinal 
equipment forbade their living wholly upon plants, 
like the herbivores, and they had neither the power- 
ful claws nor the formidable jaws which enable the 
carnivores to seize and rend and devour their prey. 
For food they had only wild fruit, a few roots, and 
such small animals as they could surprise and catch 
with their hands, whose flesh they ate raw and 
bleeding. 

To protect themselves against the inclemencies of 
the weather, they had only the skins of animals 
weaker than themselves, which they could find ways 
to entrap. Their state was wretched and pitiable 
enough, until the day came when they learned to 
procure fire to warm them, to cook their food, and 
to keep ferocious beasts away from their dwellings. 

How did this first step in humanity's progress 
come about? Doubtless through fires caused by 
lightning when it struck trees or fell upon dry brush 
or leaves. The witnesses of this natural phenom- 
enon, which must have greatly frightened them at 
first, would eventually come to see how they might 
make it serve them; they would seize burning 
brands and light their first fires, and they would 
take good care to feed them perpetually. 

Also, having seen sparks fly from the sudden con- 
tact of flint with pyrites or oxides of iron, all very 
common substances, they may have made use of 
the process for igniting heaps of dry moss or 
grasses or piles of vegetable marrow and worm- 
eaten wood. Perhaps, as most savage tribes of his- 
toric times have done, they even learned to ignite 
such inflammable material by placing it in a hole 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO, 

in the surface of a dry log, and then turning rapidly 
around in this tinder the sharpened end of a stick, 
which they held vertical between the hands, in order 
to give it the rotary motion required for heating 
the pointed extremity and the sides of the hole until 
fire was produced. 

The conquest of fire, with the knowledge of 
means to guard it and to light it, brought the first 
comfort enjoyed by primitive man, so that they 
took care to have it in all their habitations. 

These habitations were of different kinds. Some 
of them, and certainly the best, were the caves dis- 
covered in the mountains or hillsides, in which the 
members of a more or less numerous family might 
live together under shelter, and • store their food. 
If such caves failed them, no doubt these primitive 
men learned to dig out artificial ones, by removing 
the earth between boulders properly situated. Some- 
times they contented themselves with the shelter of 
a projecting rock, adding protection at the sides 
by piling up stones or wood. 

And finally, there is scarcely any doubt that the 
dwelling of these aborigines was often a conical hut, 
made by fixing a number of rods in the ground in 
the form of a circle, binding their tops together 
with stout wild vines, filling this roof in with turf 
and the branches of trees, and then covering the 
whole with skins — a construction like that which 
the wandering Indian tribes of America still build, 
as also — with the omission of the skins — woodchop- 
pers do, for their temporary sojourns in the forests 
of Europe. 

These habitations, of whatever kind, were always 
located in the vicinity of a spring, a brook, a river, 



20 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

or a natural reservoir, and before the entrance of 
each burned a fire, so sheltered as to prevent the 
extinction of the flame, and carefully tended for 
its warmth, for cooking, and for keeping at a dis- 
tance beasts of prey and other animals dangerous 
from their size and ferocity. 

Primitive man made his garments from the skins 
and fur of the animals he killed for his food. He 
cut them to suit their various uses, and sewed them 
together with nerves or tendons or with twisted 
filaments of gut. These filaments he also used for 
making cord and ropes of various sizes and 
strength. All these materials he prepared and made 
durable by exposing them a longer or shorter time 
to dry in the warm air of the fires before the homes. 

Having at first only stout cudgels for weapons, 
these men, so poorly equipped by nature with 
means of attack and defense, came in time to adapt 
to these uses sharp flints of good size, which they 
fashioned into axes or spears; and at length they 
learned to make bows and arrows, using arrow- 
heads of flint or pointed bone. 

Now confident in their own strength and prowess, 
these early men no longer feared the great carni- 
vores which were their contemporaries, and even 
dared to hunt the most ferocious herbivorous ani- 
mals, and those most formidable because of their 
colossal size. Among other means for getting these 
great creatures into their power, they must certainly 
have employed a ruse still used in the East Indies 
and in Africa. A trench was dug and then cov- 
ered over with brush and the branches of trees, in 
such fashion that any great animal trampling upon 
them would break through into the opening they 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 21 

hid from its eyes. The captive of these primitive 
hunters then perished under a fire of arrows and 
broken rock, and abundantly supplied their needs. 

The greater variety of food thus provided by 
their weapons, at once began to create special gas- 
tronomic tastes in these primitive folk. They de- 
veloped a marvelous liking for marrow, which they 
eagerly stripped out of all the large bones contain- 
ing it; so that in the localities where they lived, 
these bones are always found artificially cleft from 
end to end. 

The conditions of life to which these men were 
subjected, were plainly not favorable to their form- 
ing themselves into groups of any size. The few 
which they were able to make, here and there, were 
not large enough to be of any significance, and in 
general they lived in small and scattered families. 
Among the inevitable results of this isolation, were 
a slow mental development and the prolongation of 
the primitive state; but it also followed, that since 
there were no assemblages into groups or hordes, 
there were no pretexts for those wars which have 
arisen among men since their union into clans, 
tribes and peoples. 

Moreover, having no possessions of an individual 
nature, and being in constant need of the aid they 
could give one another in the chase, they must have 
been ignorant of envy and cupidity, and unacquaint- 
ed with rapine and theft. Not knowing how, either, 
to manufacture fermented liquor of any kind, they 
were exempt from the deplorable quarrels that 
drunkenness brings about. If any reason for hatred 
presented itself among them, it must have arisen 
from disputed rights to the possession of some worn- 



22 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

an — though love and jealousy are passions we 
might expect to find very feeble and rare in the 
midst of an existence subject to so many needs and 
such hardships and dangers. 

From their funeral feasts and other observances, 
to which all the neighboring families were invited, 
it is plain that general respect was shown their dead 
relatives and friends; and that men should be so 
honored after death, would seem to show that they 
were loved and respected in life. We cannot doubt, 
therefore, that these primitive people cared for their 
aged and orphans, and for the sick and infirm. As 
the existence of the family depended upon the ac- 
tivities of its head, who might at any moment be 
incapacitated by some accident or meet with death, 
mutual helpfulness was to the interest of all, not 
alone where the leaders were concerned, but also 
among those dependent upon these hardy followers 
of the chase. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 27, 



THIRD VIEW. 

Aborigines of Alsace. Characteristic Episode: Belette 
and Bear Slayer. 

No collections of prehistoric remains have been 
discovered, to show the presence in Alsace of these 
earliest men; up to our own time, none of those 
important stations have been unearthed which are 
found in some localities in France and in other 
parts of Europe. So the primitive race would seem 
to have had few representatives here, those few be- 
ing, no doubt, scattered along the lower slopes of 
the Vosges, whose summits were covered with gla- 
ciers. The skull of Eguisheim, buried in the loess, 
gives its unquestionable witness to this idea. These 
men would have found most favorable to them the 
great valleys of the Vosges, better protected against 
storms and the seasons' changes than the plains or 
the higher mountain slopes. It was at the foot of 
these slopes that the primitive habitations were 
made in natural or artificial caves, or in simple 
shelters built of rocks, stakes, turf, and the skin of 
beasts. 

Let us turn our thoughts for a moment to one 
of these dwellings in the far-spreading valley of 
Orbey, which opens into the Alsatian plain where 
to-day the two towns of Ammerschwihr and Kient- 
sheim stand, and extends for more than twenty- 
five kilometers, beyond the point where the ruins 
of the ancient abbey of Pairis rise, away to the foot 



24 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

of the mountains whose lofty granite peaks encircle 
the regions of White Lake and Black Lake. 

From the flanks of one of the mountains which 
form the valley's southern boundary, a half score 
of kilometers from the plain, rises a group of great 
granite rocks, overhanging the spot where to-day 
are seen the vast heaps of ruins of the cloister of 
Alspach. There, between the almost vertical sides 
of two of these great rocks, is a narrow winding- 
passageway leading to a cavern within, roomy 
enough to house a number of human beings. 

On the floor in the rear of this subterranean 
abode, is spread an accumulation of mosses, leaves, 
dried grasses and undressed skins — rude enough 
bedding, but answering the needs of those who are 
destined to sleep here. Other skins and furs, for 
the most part converted into garments, are strung 
along a strong liana, fastened high at both ends on 
one wall of the cave. Elsewhere on the ground of 
the cave is piled up a small store of roots, wild 
fruits, and meat, the last either fresh or frozen, ac- 
cording to the season. In one corner is a collec- 
tion of axes, spears and bows and arrows, with flint 
arrow-heads ready for use. Three aurochs' skulls 
serve as seats, and skulls of deer, wolves and hyenas 
for use as utensils, complete the rude furnishings 
of the cavern, while at its entrance a great urus 
hide hangs like a portiere. 

A step away, at the foot of the rock outside, and 
surrounded by a number of great stones, a fire is 
burning, and around it are grouped three human 
beings. They are all dressed in wolf skins, and 
have their feet enveloped in coverings of fur, turned 
upwards around the ankles and tied securely with 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 25 

thongs of gut. One of them, a woman, is distin- 
guished from her companions by longer hair, a stat- 
ure slightly lower and slimmer, features less rude, 
softer eyes and smaller hands. She seems about 
forty years old. She is seated on a granite block, 
exposing to the flame a large piece of meat, on a 
spit of green wood, whose ends rest upon two forked 
stakes driven into the ground. 

Beside her stands a man a little older and stockier 
than she, his rough-hewn features framed in bushy 
black hair that falls to his shoulders, while his upper 
lip and chin are covered with short and sparse 
bristles. With a number of tightly drawn bands, 
he has just succeeded in fastening firmly together 
around the thicker end of a jade ax-head, the two 
sides of a split he has made in one end of a stout 
stick, and is regarding with a satisfied eye the fine 
axe he has added to his store of weapons. 

The third person presented to us in the little 
scene, is the son of the other two. He is not over 
nineteen at the most, but he is already as tall, as 
robust, and as strong as his father, from whom he 
differs only in having a more juvenile face, less 
roughly cut features, and no beard. Seated, like his 
mother, on a piece of rock, he is making an auroch's 
horn into a trumpet. With a sharp bit of flint he 
has sawed off the heavy tip, and in the narrow open- 
ing thus made has firmly fastened a short piece of 
bone, flattened on one side, and sloping obliquely 
toward the large end of the horn. This needs only 
to be forcefully blown, to make it produce harsh and 
very penetrating sounds. 

The three operations we have been following so 
carefully are finished almost at the same moment; 



26 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

the son's trumpet is sonorous, the father's axe firm, 
and the mother's roast is done to a turn. The meat 
is placed on a rock, the three sit down around it, 
and fragment by fragment it is made away with, 
all eating heartily. The consumption of the meat 
is followed by that of a quantity of fresh water, 
which the son has fetched from a neighboring 
spring in two wolf skulls. Out of these the whole 
family drink at their pleasure. 

The meal has been almost as silent as the labor 
which preceded it, for these people, having few new 
ideas to communicate, talk little, conversation never 
becoming animated among them save when they re- 
count the dangers or mishaps of the chase. 

The day is now drawing to a close, and through 
the veil of the falling darkness, fires begin to be 
visible burning in front of the habitations scattered 
here and there at the foot of the mountains which 
shut in the valley. Before the night has fallen com- 
pletely, the little family we have been watching, 
having first fed the fire before their cave, have gone 
inside and given themselves to sleep. 

If these primitive people at whom we have been 
looking for a moment, have at all aroused our in- 
terest, let us become a little more enlightened upon 
the subject of their previous history. 

An old man had died in one of these dwellings 
in the valley of Orbey, and his family, wishing to 
proceed with the usual ceremony, had a summons 
sent out, from neighbor to neighbor, for an assem- 
bly of all the inhabitants of this part of the Vosges. 
Although one member of each family, usually the 
wife, always remained behind, to care for the chil- 
dren, keep up the fire, and guard against the depre- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 27 

dations of beasts, quite a large number of people 
had been able to come together, among whom were 
even some girls. 

After the rites in honor of the dead, a score of 
his relatives sat down to the feast which always 
followed. Among these guests was a girl of nine- 
teen or twenty, one of the most attractive of her 
race. She was called Belette, and she had arrested 
the attention of a young man a little older than her- 
self, known as the most daring hunter of the region, 
and called Bear Slayer, in token of his victory in a 
perilous encounter with a bear, which in size and 
strength far surpassed the largest bears of modern 
times. 

In the course of the day, Bear Slayer had several 
times sought out Belette, and they had exchanged 
a few words. During the feast he sat beside her, 
and before night had dispersed the guests he had 
learned her name, her age, and where she lived. 
He knew also that she would be glad to see him in 
the home of her parents, among the people to whom 
she was attached. 

This young hunter of the Vosges had no need 
to learn more, and after a few days, having in- 
formed his own family of his intentions, he set out 
at daybreak to make his way to her whom he had 
chosen to be his companion through life. 

He had put on his finest garments, made from 
the pelt of the bear to which he owed his name; 
had covered his head with the tawny hide of a fox, 
letting his long black locks escape from this head- 
dress; and had shod himself with fresh wolf skins, 
bound high and close around his ankles. An axe 
hung from his belt, a bow and arrow were sus- 



28 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

pended from his left shoulder, and in his right hand 
he carried a spear. 

Although his stride appeared a little heavy, it was 
swift and sure, and in spite of the fact that he had 
many times to go out of his way to avoid obstacles, 
and that he spent some moments in waylaying and 
killing a fine deer, it took him only four hours to 
arrive at the end of the valley, where lived Old Oak, 
the father of Belette. Here he found, engaged in 
various occupations, Belette's parents and her 
younger sister, Oak Leaf. 

At his approach, the elder of the girls went to 
meet him with a smile of welcome, and relieved 
him of the game he was carrying over his shoulder. 
Then, addressing himself to the head of the family, 
the young hunter said: "I am called Bear Slayer, 
and I live with my parents at the entrance of the 
valley, not far from the plain. I saw Belette at the 
last funeral ceremonies, and she told me it would 
give her pleasure to have me come to see you, so 
I have come, and have brought you this deer which 
I surprised by the way." 

"I, too, am glad to see you," replied Old Oak, 
"for I have heard that you are a good, brave hun- 
ter. Lay aside your weapons and rest awhile." 
Then he added, after a moment's silence, "What do 
you want of me?" 

"I want Belette," said Bear Slayer, with an af- 
fectionate look toward the girl, whose sun-browned 
face lighted up with naive joy. "She pleased me 
from the first moment I saw her, and after talking 
with her, I want to have her for my wife. If she 
consents, I will see to it that she lives in abundance, 
for my spear and arrows will always keep hunger 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 20, 

away from my dwelling. "Belette, will you go 
back with me, and you, Old Oak, do you consent?" 

"If you will promise to be as good and kind to 
her as I am told you are to your parents, you may 
have her," replied Old Oak, "as soon as you have 
a lodge to receive her." 

At this, Bear Slayer, in token of friendship, gave 
his hand to Old Oak, his wife and the young girl, 
Oak Leaf, and then threw his arms about Belette, 
who abandoned herself to his caresses. He passed 
the remainder of the day in the midst of the 
family with which he had allied himself, and 
when night came, slept by the side of Belette. 

On the morrow of this swift and brutal betrothal, 
Bear Slayer returned to his parents, told them the 
result of his journey, and went in search of a habi- 
tation where he might set up his housekeeping. 
Not far from his father's dwelling he found a fa- 
vorable spot, and soon had it arranged in accord- 
ance with his needs. 

His father and he then set out for the home of 
Old Oak, and there, in the presence of a few neigh- 
bors, the parents of the two young people declared 
their union, and the customary banquet followed. 

Belette, after being affectionately received by the 
mother of Bear Slayer, followed her husband to 
the dwelling he had prepared for her, and there 
they had lived together during the twenty years 
preceding the time when we saw them with their 
son, whose precocious strength had earned him the 
name of Strong Arm. 

During this long period of their life, which was 
hard and toilsome, but happy withal, they had to 
bear but one unexpected sorrow. The first born 



30 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

of their two boys, when he was four years old, 
escaped one day from the guard of his mother,, and 
wandering a little way from the dwelling, was sur- 
prised, seized and carried off and devoured by 
wolves. The grief of his parents was softened by 
time and by the care and affection with which they 
guarded the second of their two children. 

A few days after we saw them with Belette in 
front of their home, Bear Slayer and his son were 
preparing to go hunting, when they heard a trumpet 
call sound from a point further up the valley. It 
was a signal they well knew, and they passed it on 
in their turn, going out some distance toward the 
plain. Meanwhile, the flanks of the opposite moun- 
tains began to reverberate from point to point with 
similar calls sent out in the same direction. 

This signaling was the result of an agreement 
among the aborigines of the great valley of Orbey, 
in accordance with which any one of them who 
needed the assistance of the others immediately 
sounded one or more alarms. These were taken up 
and repeated from habitation to habitation. After 
accomplishing this first duty, each then set out to- 
ward the point whence the signal came to him ; and 
thus in the end they all found themselves united at 
the place from which it had started. 

This is what now happened according to their 
custom; so that in less than three hours fifteen of 
these aborigines of the Vosges met at a dwelling 
situated a short distance from the gorge opening 
into the great valley from the deep and narrow vale 
in whose upper part now lies the smiling village of 
Frelan. In few words, as precise as they were con- 
cise, they were informed by the master of this primi- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 3 1 

tive dwelling, who bore the name of Great Eagle, 
that several times recently, at nightfall, a great tiger 
had been seen to come out from the woods whose 
thickets spread over the gorge, go down into the 
valley, drink at the stream which runs through it 
all the way from the lakes to the plain, and after 
satisfying his thirst, return as he had come, leaving 
so many tracks as to make a veritable trail into the 
underbrush from which he sallied out. ' 

When the facts were made known, these men, 
more accustomed to act than to talk, spent little time 
deliberating. With one accord they decided to at- 
tack the murderous beast without delay, and to con- 
tinue the warfare until they had either killed it or 
driven it out of the vicinity. 

For the attack, the hunters were to be divided 
into two groups, one made up of the men from the 
head of the valley, the other of those from the vicin- 
ity of the plain. Toward night each group was to 
take up a position in the wood, at two or three hun- 
dred paces from the gorge, and wait until the tiger 
appeared. When he had gone on his way toward 
the river, they were to come out quickly, and after 
leaving a quarter of some large game on his trail, 
station themselves on opposite sides of it, and wait 
for his return. When the tiger seized upon the 
game to carry it off to his lair, they were to let fly 
their volleys of arrows, and beat a hasty retreat. 
These manoeuvres were to begin the next day, and 
to be repeated daily until the death or disappearance 
of the beast. 

Though the arrangements were all duly made, 
the projected watch and attack were impracticable 
on the following three nights, whose twilight was 



32 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

transformed by a heavy fog into dense blackness, 
and whose obscurity was disturbed only by muffled 
roars from the tiger during his excursion to the 
drinking place. The case was no better on the 
fourth night, for the sky was still lowery, so that 
the hunters had barely a glimpse of the animal as 
he emerged from the wood, without being able to 
distinguish the direction he took either going or 
coming. 

The fifth day the weather was more favorable; 
the air was clear, and the twilight shadows were 
not so deep but that even comparatively small ob- 
jects could be distinguished a hundred paces off. 
An hour before nightfall the hunters had returned 
to their respective posts, — seven of them on one 
side, led by Great Eagle, and on the other side eight, 
under the leadership of Bear Slayer. Motionless, 
silent, and hidden in the thick brush at the edge 
of the wood, they waited patiently until the sun 
had disappeared behind the high peaks of - the 
Vosges. Soon their anxious gaze, fixed upon the 
space between the two groups, was rewarded by 
the sight of the great beast, which came out of the 
wood along the trail it was accustomed to follow, 
halted for a moment, then, confident in its great 
strength and scornful of danger, descended slowly 
toward the river, trampling down the tall grasses 
and weeds of the meadow through which the rush- 
ing stream flowed. 

Then the hunters glided swiftly across the under- 
brush, coming up from either side to within thirty 
paces of the trail, arranged their bait — the haunch 
of a wild boar — a little further off and in plain 
sight, and again concealed themselves in the wood. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 33 

In spite of their courage and resolution, they were 
greatly perturbed as the moment for the hazardous 
encounter drew near, and they heartily wished it 
were past. They had not long to wait. After drink- 
ing deep at the river, the tiger turned back the way 
he had come. When within a hundred paces of his 
customary entrance to the wood, he halted, as 
though scenting the presence of his enemies, slowly 
turning his head from left to right, toward the 
points where they lay in hiding. Then, seeing no 
one, and catching the first whiff of the bait that 
had been thrown out for him, he crept stealthily 
forward, to surprise his prey, and when he had come 
near enough, made a formidable spring, seizing 
upon it with teeth and claws. Surprised at not 
finding it alive, he nevertheless fastened his strong 
jaws into it, lifted it from the ground, and started 
out to carry it to his den. 

This was the moment for which the hunters had 
been waiting. As the tiger started toward the wood, 
they let fly their twofold volley of arrows, and then 
took to flight. Three only among them halted long- 
enough to draw their bows a second time. 

A number of arrows were deeply bedded in the 
shoulders and flanks of the tiger, but he was 
not yet vanquished. Drunk with pain and rage, 
he dropped the treacherous prey, and with his teeth 
began breaking off the shafts of the arrows buried 
in his body. This only added to his suffering, and 
feeling his powerlessness to free himself. from the 
weapons that were wounding him so cruelly, he 
gave a roar of fury, and dashed in pursuit of the 
three belated hunters, the sound of whose retreat 
he had heard. He would certainly have been upon 



34 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

them in a few bounds, had not his course been 
checked by the arrows in his sides continually strik- 
ing against the brush and trees. But in spite of 
this hindrance and a copious flow of blood from 
his wounds, he was soon within reach of two of 
the fleeing men. They were Bear Slayer and 
Strong Arm. 

Aware that they were sharing in imminent dan- 
ger, and doubtless hoping to insure the safety of 
his son, Bear Slayer resolved to hazard a decisive 
struggle. He suddenly halted, and dropping on 
one knee with his back against a tree, lowered his 
head, leveled his spear and awaited the charge. An 
instant afterward the man was crushed under the 
weight of the tiger, which the new wound it re- 
ceived still left with enough life to tear madly at the 
fur coverings of its victim's body. At this mo- 
ment, Strong Arm, conscious that his father was 
no longer near him, turned about and saw him in 
the murderous clutches of the tiger. He did not 
hesitate, but rushing upon the terrible beast, gave 
it a spear thrust near the shoulder, and springing 
aside to escape the movement it made to seize him, 
he twice more plunged his weapon into its body. 
At last it sank to the ground, its forces spent from 
loss of blood, and scarcely able to utter a final cry. 

Bear Slayer was dead, his neck broken by the 
shock of the encounter. His son lifted him out of 
the pool of blood in which the two bodies lay, called 
back the other hunters by a signal from his horn, 
and was soon surrounded by them all. 

They quickly constructed two litters and bore 
away the bodies of man and tiger to the home of 
Belette, to whom the tidings of Bear Slayer's death 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 35 

had been carried already by her son, and who was 
giving way to her grief. All night long she la- 
mented beside the body of her husband, where she 
had thrown herself down and where she remained 
heedless of everything around her. In the morn- 
ing, her son succeeded in calming her grief. 

Meanwhile, the other hunters had withdrawn 
their arrows from the enemy's body and removed 
the skin, and had made ready a burial place for 
Bear Slayer in a cavity of the rock. They wrapped 
him in the skin of the animal he had so heroically 
attacked the day before, and laid him to rest, filling 
up the entrance to his tomb with a great stone. 

During the funeral feast following the burial, of 
which the tiger's flesh did not fail to make a part, 
Great Eagle briefly praised the courage and mutual 
devotion which the father and son had shown, and 
proposed that in commemoration of it the latter 
should hereafter bear the name of Death-to-Tigers. 



36 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



FOURTH VIEW. 

Age of the reindeer. — Glacial deluge. — A new human 
race. — Aryan beginnings. — Age of polished stone, of 
megalithic monuments; pagan walls of the Vosges. — ■ 
War. — Lake dwellers. — Progress. — Beginnings of agricul- 
ture; domestic animals. — Discovery of bronze. — Charac- 
teristic episode: Tamal and Misie. 

In spite of the extreme slowness with which the 
glacial period continued to pursue its phase of de- 
cadence, surface changes of considerable import- 
ance took place in the region comprised within the 
English Channel, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees, 
the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Jura and the 
Rhine — that small section of the earth which later 
was to form France and Belgium. The climate be- 
came more temperate. The glaciers of the lesser 
mountains gradually diminished and disappeared, 
and an abundant vegetation covered the peaks, the 
slopes and the valleys thus left denuded. The waters 
produced by the melting of so much ice, changed 
the contour of the valleys and overspread them with 
new deposits, which were carried even into the 
neighboring plains. 

Deer with gigantic antlers, the cave bear, the 
cave hyena, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus 
had ceased to exist in this part of Europe, and the 
tiger and mammoth were dying out; reindeer, the 
horse, and numerous species of small carnivores and 
herbivores now inhabited the region. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 37 

Enjoying greater security and more favorable cli- 
matic conditions, members of the human family now- 
had an easier life. Instead of finding refuge almost 
entirely in caves, they multiplied their habitations 
under detached natural shelters, or in huts built with 
their own hands, in whose interior, they contrived 
to arrange a hearth suitable for their needs. 

Instead of being scattered apart by the force of 
circumstances, these dwellings could be brought to- 
gether in little groups, thus lending themselves to 
the instinctive leaning toward sociability possessed 
by man, which is at once the foundation and the 
means of his perfectibility. This instinct it was 
which in earlier times had made it possible to set 
up at certain points veritable manufactories of flint 
implements, the first germ of trade, and had brought 
about the first commercial relations, so to put it, 
through the habit of searching for flint in certain 
localities, especially in Champagne, for transporta- 
tion into other localities which were without it. 

The men of the reindeer epoch were not content 
to make all their implements out of flint; they used 
also the bones and antlers of the reindeer; and as 
the abundance of game gave them plenty of leisure, 
they brought these implements to great perfection, 
and made new ones whose smaller dimensions and 
more delicate outlines demanded unquestionable 
skill, such as needles, bodkins, barbed arrowheads, 
fish hooks, handles for knives and daggers, and var- 
ious sorts of ornaments. 

Nor were they satisfied with the improvement of 
their weapons and household utensils; they felt a 
taste for art beginning to grow within them, of 
which traces are found in numerous figures of men 



38 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

and animals sketched on fragments of reindeer ant- 
lers, bits of ivory, or soft, flat stones. 

They had abandoned their heavy fur coverings 
of aurochs, bear or wolf skin, for lighter garments 
made of reindeer skin, from which they had learned 
how to remove the hair, and which they made supple 
and durable by curing in marrow and brains. Their 
chief food was the flesh of reindeer and of the 
horses that inhabited the country in large herds. 

They no longer buried their dead individually in 
rocky crevices, as their predecessors had done; but 
they placed them side by side or one above another, 
in more spacious cavities, which they closed with 
slabs of rocks, leaving near each body the weapons 
the man had carried in life, and even a little store 
of provisions, a thing which tended to show that 
they believed him about to continue, under other 
conditions, the life he had just left. The custom 
of the funeral feast was preserved. 

Such were the general conditions in the region 
whose successive and diverse transformations have 
been described in the preceding pages, when a new 
cataclysm came to modify them once more. Up 
to this time, the rigors of the glacial period had 
relaxed very little; but now, no doubt because of a 
sudden rise of temperature at the earth's surface, 
there came a simultaneous and instantaneous melt- 
ing of the ice all over Europe, leaving intact only 
that which then charged and still charges the loft- 
iest peaks of the highest mountains. The tremend- 
ous quantity of water this set free at all these points 
at once, caused overwhelming floods, which every- 
where tore up the soil, laying waste valleys and 
plains, washing out deep ravines, and leaving vast 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 39 

deposits of boulders, alluvium and mud. Is that 
rich, clayey loam which covers parts of the valleys 
of the Rhine and Rhone, due to these floods alone, 
or did they do no more than add to a deposit which 
had been made there already during the upheaval 
of the final Alpine groups? However it may be, 
this stratum acquired a great thickness, and ex- 
tends so far as to cover even a considerable portion 
of Belgium. 

This European deluge, due to that precipitate 
melting of the ice which brought the glacial period 
to a close, caused the disappearance from the re- 
gion, either by extermination or emigration, of a 
great number of animals, and of that race of men 
which was contemporary with the mammoth and 
the reindeer; if a few individuals of this primitive 
race were able to survive, they were absorbed in the 
new human family then appearing in the places they 
had inhabited. 

Scientists are agreed in considering these new in- 
habitants of Europe to be natives of the Caucasus, 
driven from their homes by the cold which had 
settled over its lofty mountains, and wandering un- 
til they reached this far region, to become, under 
the generic name of Aryans, the successors of the 
earlier European race. 

It is needless to describe here the form and fea- 
tures which distinguished this Caucasian race, since 
it has endured to the present age, and with the ex- 
ception of some slight variations due to climate or 
differing customs, possessed the same characteristics 
that it has in modern times. 

In the early period of their appearance in Europe, 
these new people's ways of life were little different 



40 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

from those of the race they had displaced, and 
scarcely better; but step by step they succeeded in 
improving their condition. Along the coast they 
lived chiefly upon shell-bearing sea -animals and fish, 
as is shown by heaps of refuse that have been found 
in the department of the Pas de Calais, and es- 
pecially in Denmark. The dwellers on lake or river 
banks learned to add the products of fishing to 
those of the chase; for eventually they made nets 
and dugouts, numbers of which have been found 
buried in alluvial or lake-shore deposits, and in the 
peat-beds whose formation was subsequent to that 
of the latest alluvial land. The reindeer, now con- 
fined to the north, had disappeared from these re- 
gions, as had also the numerous bands of horses 
which formerly roamed through them; but the 
hunters found an abundance of red deer, wild boars, 
and numerous other hairy or feathered game, and 
it seems to be established beyond a doubt that they 
were skillful enough to domesticate the dog. The 
brown bear and the wolf were the only animals 
they still had to fear and to fight. The climate, now 
greatly moderated, no longer imposed the necessity 
of covering the whole body with furs, as in the age 
of the mammoths, nor even in the less cumbersome 
garments of reindeer skin which had been worn 
later in the same age. It now sufficed to cover the 
shoulders and loins with the lighter and more supple 
pelt of the roe-deer and other smaller animals. 

The influence of these new conditions, favorable 
to the central region of western Europe, was also 
favorable to the progress of its inhabitants. Their 
numbers increased rapidly; their open air shelters 
and huts were modified into more substantial dwell- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 41 

ings, which were made from the trunks and 
branches of treos, and commenced to take on the 
aspect of thatched cottages ; and they began to build 
these in groups, thus laying the earliest foundations 
for the formation of clans, tribes and peoples. 

But the thing which above all others character- 
izes this epoch of humanity is the improvement in 
implements. Hitherto, excepting a few objects 
fashioned out of reindeer antlers, they had been 
made solely of rough flint; from this time on, pol- 
ished flint was used, and in addition skillfully 
worked stag horn. Axes, knives, saws, and the 
heads of arrows, javelins and pikes, were no longer 
made of anything but polished flint, and were fitted 
into handles by sockets of stag horn cunningly 
adapted to the purpose. 

For instance, an axe consisted of a stout blade of 
polished flint, well sharpened, and firmly fixed in a 
socket of stag horn, the latter being pierced a little 
way back by a hole through which a strong hard 
wood handle was introduced at right angles. 

The antlers of the red deer and other bony struc- 
tures were used with much greater skill and art than 
had been shown in utilizing the antlers of the rein- 
deer, and were made to serve for a large number 
of small tools and ornaments. Among the things 
which witness to man's mechanical labors in this 
age so far in our past, it remains for us to mention 
the debris of pottery or terra cotta utensils. 

It is to the age of polished stone that dolmens, 
menhirs and cromlechs belong, those ancient monu- 
ments which were long attributed to the Celts, and 
designated under the name of Druidcal stones. By 
objects found with them, it is made evident that 



42 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

they belong to the time of the prehistoric race with 
which we are dealing. 

The dolmens were great slabs of rock raised upon 
rock pillars, thus making a covered space and even 
long galleries. Here the dead were buried, either 
singly or in groups, the bodies being covered with 
earth heaped up to form the rounded mounds that 
bear the name of tumuli, and that frequently at- 
tained to large dimensions. 

Near these burial places, great vertical pillars of 
rock called menhirs were often raised, and when 
they were arranged in a circle or rectangle around 
a tumulus, the place thus enclosed became a crom- 
lech. These imposing witnesses to the labors of 
men in the nearest prehistoric times, are nowhere 
more numerous than in Brittany, where one may 
yet see, near Carnac, the celebrated field of stand- 
ing stones, consisting of eleven parallel rows of 
vertical stone columns extending for the distance 
of a kilometer. 

With these megalithic structures of the epoch of 
polished stone, belong some discovered at different 
points in our own regions, which must certainly 
have served the men who established them as de- 
fensive fortifications. These intrenched camps, 
many of which are found in certain sections of Bel- 
gium, and stand for the most part on heights over- 
looking deep valleys, are in the form of thick walls 
built of great stone blocks, fitted together, but with- 
out mortar. 

To this species of defensive works belongs un- 
questionably the one which under the name of the 
Pagan Wall, runs along over several of our moun- 
tains of the Vosges, a portion of it being near Ten- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 43 

nichel, above the valley of Ribeauville. There one 
is astounded to find yet, extending for a distance 
of two kilometers, enormous blocks of stone aligned 
and built up in the manner of a wall, whose thick- 
ness and height both range from two to three 
meters, and which frequently rests against the bases 
of great rocks that figure in it like towers. 

A portion of the Pagan Wall still more impos- 
ing, stretches for fifteen kilometers along the crests 
of the Vosges in the vicinity of the height occupied 
by the ancient convent of Sainte-Odile. As at Ten- 
nichel, this cyclopean wall is formed of powerful 
rocks, aligned and regularly built, and sometimes 
presenting holes, doubtless used for trussing it up 
with wooden braces. 

Were these imposing megalithic structures of Al- 
sace, whose remains may also be found upon many 
other summits of the Vosges, independent of one 
another, each belonging to a limited fortified area, 
or were they all part of a common line of defence 
established above the chief passes of the chain? 
They fail to answer this question, but they offer 
abundant proof that in the epoch of polished stone, 
Alsace was inhabited by a people numerous enough 
and energetic enough to carry out works thus ex- 
tensive, and so astonishing from the view point of 
the poverty of mechanical means that must have 
sufficed for producing them. Unfortunately they 
also prove, that in Alsace as elsewhere where ruined 
fortifications are found, the people were thus early 
exposed to the evils of war. 

This fatal scourge of humanity always appears 
as soon as there are formed at any distance apart, 
groups of men, that are not bound together by com- 



44 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

mon ties. An accidental meeting between individ- 
uals belonging to different groups, is enough to 
bring about quarrels, rivalries and hatreds, which 
all the other members of the respective tribes soon 
make their own. It is also true that no community 
of men ever exists without someone of their num- 
ber coming to rule in it by reason of superior 
strength, daring, or intelligence. Once risen to 
leadership among his companions, he continually 
seeks to gain authority over them, and to extend 
the area of their dominions, to the disadvantage of 
their neighbors. In this way the first warfare must 
have arisen among prehistoric men; for they were 
not led to be quarrelsome by drunkenness, of whose 
excesses they were ignorant, nor by the desire of 
seizing upon one another's riches, since of riches 
they were all alike destitute. 

The few preceding pages make it easy to under- 
stand the sanguinary conflict which once broke out 
between two tribes inhabiting severally the two ex- 
tremities of the beautiful and picturesque Vosges 
Valley of Saint Amarin. One of these tribes dwelt 
at the head of the valley, above the point where the 
Thur runs through the meadows that stretch out 
between the flanks of the mountains, and by a deep 
and voluminous fall plunges into a rocky basin 
known in our time by the name of Haidenbad or 
Pagan Bath. From the number of badgers' bur- 
rows (terriers de blaireaux) in the vicinity, the little 
clan under the chief Kerad had come to be known 
as the Blairaks. Twenty kilometers away, in the 
direction of the plain, and not far from the present 
sites of the town of Thann and the village of Watt- 
wilier, well known as a watering place, on account 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 45 

of its mineral springs, lived the other tribe, a little 
smaller in numbers than the first, and under the 
patriarchal authority of Faroe. Their success as 
hunters of the beavers (castors) in the ponds 
formed along the borders of the Thur by the waters 
from the neighboring hillsides and by the river's 
overflow, had led them to choose the name of 
Castrins. 

One day when the men of the tribe were hunting 
midway up the valley, they saw a deer break 
through the brush at the edge of a wood they were 
about to enter. They were near enough to reach it 
with their arrows, two of which sufficed to bring it 
to earth, and in a moment they were upon it and 
had ended its life by a blow on the head. They then 
saw for the first time that it bore in one of its but- 
tocks the broken shaft of a third arrow, which must 
have struck it only a short time before, as was evi- 
dent from the freshness of the wound. Without 
giving much heed to the matter, they rested awhile 
beside their booty, and were preparing to take it 
away, when they saw three hunters of the tribe of 
the Blairaks advancing rapidly toward them; these 
men had been following an hour or two along the 
trail of the animal they had wounded, and now 
claimed it on the ground that in the end it would 
not have been able to escape them. The Castrins 
pointed out that the wound was not so grave but 
that the deer might have kept its liberty, perhaps 
even have saved its life, and that consequently it 
was the property of those who had killed it. The 
conflicting claims of the two little groups of hunts- 
men led to a discussion which became more and 
more animated, grew into an exchange of epithets, 



46 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

and ended in a violent assault. One of the Castrins 
was wounded and forced to flee with his companions, 
who managed to get him back, weak from loss of 
blood, to the dwelling place of their clan. 

Their arrival produced a great commotion among 
their clansmen. Indignation broke loose on all sides, 
and only the resolution to take speedy vengeance 
held the enraged and exasperated people under any 
control. 

On their side, the Blairaks did not fail to foresee 
the reprisals they had to expect, and they judged it 
necessary to take defensive measures. They threw 
up barricades against the high rocks at the foot of 
the mountain, and on top of these rocks they col- 
lected great stones intended to be hurled down upon 
an advancing enemy. To protect the approaches to 
their station from the side of the valley, they 
screened them by stockades of felled trees set 
up in a serried row. In spite of the promptness with 
which these works were executed, they were barely 
finished when the scouts that had been despatched 
in various directions beat a retreat to announce the 
arrival of the enemy. 

The fact was that a band of thirty Castrins had 
stealthily advanced during the night, under cover 
of the forest, in the hope of surprising the station 
of the Blairaks in the early hours of the morning. 
Believing their adversaries to be unsuspecting and 
undefended, they boldly charged in the direction of 
the dwellings which they knew to be accessible from 
the side of the valley ; but they were checked by the 
barricade of trees, and by a discharge of arrows 
that showed the failure of their attempted surprise, 
and the necessity of a fight. They bravely joined 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 47 

battle, and across the leafy branches of the barri- 
cade the arrows sped, wounding and killing both 
assailants and defenders. On the side of the moun- 
tain, the attack was no more fortunate, the stones 
which the Blairaks hurled from the rocks overhead 
preventing all approach there. The struggle was 
thus reduced to a battle between the archers, and 
could not end otherwise than with the retreat of 
the Castrins. 

At this point, one of the attacking party, Tamal, 
the son of the Chief, noted among his companions 
for his activity and daring, drew some of his fol- 
lowers away toward the side of the mountain, and 
persuaded them to climb it, in the hope of reaching 
the summit of the rocks held by the beseiged, and 
driving them out in a struggle whose success should 
give victory to the Castrins. The little group of 
men that executed this maneuvre, succeeded in ar- 
riving on the rocks of which they hoped to gain 
possession; but they found themselves outnumbered 
by the opposing party, and after a hand to hand 
encounter they were forced to flee, leaving Tamal 
unconscious on the field, with an axe wound in 
his breast. Thus repulsed at every point of their 
attack, the Castrins retreated and returned to their 
homes,bearing with them two dead and five wounded, 
and leaving the body of Tamal at the mercy of their 
enemies. 

The brave youth, whom a few hours had trans- 
formed from a hunter into a warrior, was now in 
the hands of those he had so boldly attacked. He 
was still unconscious, but the blood flowing from 
his wound showed that he lived. A number of the 
Blairaks would have put an end to him, in order 



48 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

to avenge the death of one of their own number 
and the wounds of several others; but they were 
restrained by their Chief, who was well enough satis- 
fied by his victory, and wished to keep the young 
warrior as a hostage, in case the Castrins should 
meditate fresh attacks upon his tribe. He had 
Tamal carried into an empty cabin, and confided 
him to the care of some of the women, who stanched 
his wound and dressed it with healing herbs that 
they had learned to be efficacious. When after a 
little time he came to himself, he was astonished and 
gratified to be the object of so much care, and to 
see among his nurses a beautiful young girl, called 
Misie by her companions whom he soon learned to 
be the daughter of Kerad. 

Tamal's wound, not so bad as it appeared, was. 
not to prove mortal ; he had been made unconscious 
by the violence of the blow he had received and the 
loss of blood. His extreme weakness and the sooth- 
ing influence of the care given his wound, soon 
plunged him into a profound sleep which lasted a 
number of hours. When he awoke he saw the young 
Misie on guard beside the bed of mosses and furs 
where they had laid him. At once, she offered him 
an herb tea, which he drank eagerly, to quench his 
burning thirst, and then she gave him some very 
simple food. After that, with another woman's aid, 
she redressed his wound, and the relative comfort 
all these attentions gave him brought sleep to Tamal 
again. In this way a number of days were passed 
between refreshing sleep and the assiduous care of 
the two or three women, among whom Misie 
showed the greatest zeal. Then his strength began 
to return and his wound to heal, and the certainty 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 49 

of his speedy recovery so cooled the ardor of his 
nurses that had it not been for the constant solici- 
tude of Misie, he would have been left almost to 
himself. 

The age in which these two young people lived 
was already very remote and very different from 
the one in which the attraction between the sexes 
was almost wholly instinctive, the intelligence play- 
ing little part. The men of this new human race, 
considerably superior to those contemporaneous with 
the mammoth and the reindeer, possessed ideas of a 
more extended order, and their bent for improving 
their implements and embellishing their ornaments, 
make it evident that they were sensitive to the ef- 
fect of form, and already capable, at least to a de- 
gree, of appreciating the beauty of beings and 
things. From these newly awakened faculties there 
was sure to result an appreciable degree of eleva- 
tion in the relation of the sexes. The matter of de- 
liberate choice entered into it more largely, and so, 
depending upon taste, it grew into a sentiment. To 
assure the continuance of the race, nature had given 
the primitive people of the earlier ages the mutual 
affections of mother, father and child ; but she seems 
to have reserved- for the posterity of their successors 
the experience of love from sentiment and predilec- 
tion. 

This was the love which drew together Misie and 
Tamal in their youth and beauty. Both had hair of 
chestnut brown, fine and soft; great brown eyes, 
oval faces richly tanned, and regular and symetrical 
features, and they were alike tall and slim, with ele- 
gance and grace in Misie and strength and added 
stature in Tamal. Their faces differed in that the 



50 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

girl's was mobile and sweet, while the youth's was 
calm and affable and given character by a full, short 
beard, smooth and warm in tint. Misie could not 
look upon her handsome wounded warrior and nurse 
him without loving him; and Tamal, as his forces 
returned, felt a passion for the engaging girl who 
had saved his life, grow with his gratitude. 

But if this was no longer the age of purely in- 
stinctive attraction, no more was it one of hesitancy 
in love, or of those unhappy passions which the ob- 
stacles born of civilization have often engendered 
later on. The young people confessed their love to 
each other, and would have been entirely happy had 
it not been for the grave circumstances under which 
they had come to know and love one another. 

Indeed, as soon as the recovery of Tamal became 
complete, he would be taken from the care of Misie, 
treated as a captive, watchfully guarded, and per- 
haps even put to death, in case the Castrins at- 
tempted a fresh attack upon the Blairaks. Terrified 
at the thought of this threatening future, the girl 
resolved to save her lover by aiding him to escape 
before he should be really subjected to its dangers 
by his recovery, and she confided to him her deter- 
mination to send him away from her as soon as he 
should be able to bear the journey. At first Tamal 
stoutly refused to go unless she would consent to 
follow him; but she assured him of her fixed de- 
termination not to desert her tribe nor to leave her 
father, who had no one belonging to him but her. 
After long discussions, in which regret, tenderness, 
the pain of separation and the hope of meeting again 
when time should end the hostility between their 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 5 1 

clans, were in turn in the ascendancy, Tamal at 
length submitted to Misie's will. 

She did not delay the carrying out of her plan, 
but began by plausible pretexts to try to get rid of 
the women who had hitherto aided her in caring 
for Tamal, and above all to keep away the men, 
who sometimes came to inform themselves of the 
state of their prisoner. Then one dark night, after 
making sure that all the members of the tribe were 
asleep in their dwellings, she went to the cabin 
where they had still left Tamal, whom they sup- 
posed yet unable to leave it. This, however, he 
made out to do, with Misie's help, and she silently 
conducted him for some distance in the direction 
he must take in order to return to the station of the 
Castrins. Although cheered by their hopes for the 
future, they found it very hard to part, and the ex- 
pression of tenderness between them only increased 
the hardship of the separation. After their adieux, 
Misie slipped back unobserved to her home, and 
Tamal made his way toward his, where after long 
hours he arrived, overcome by fatigue and suffering. 
He was received by his tribe with so much the more 
joy because they had supposed him dead, and had 
bewailed their inability to avenge him after their 
defeat and the Blairaks' victory. 

As for the Blairaks, they were greatly exasper- 
ated by the escape of their prisoner, whom they had 
thought too ill and weak to slip out of their hands, 
and they never knew that it was due to the bravery 
and devotion of Misie and to his own moral as well 
as physical force. They did not miss him until it 
was too late for pursuit. 

In the hands of his mother, and surrounded by 



52 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

evidences of the devotion of his father and of the 
other Castrins with whom he had fought so bravely 
a few weeks before, Tamal soon fully regained his 
strength. He learned with satisfaction that his tribe 
had given up all idea of a fresh struggle with the 
Blairaks, whom they considered to be protected from 
any reprisals they might attempt, both by their su- 
periority in numbers, and the advantageous posi- 
tion of their village. In order to avoid any possible 
conflict, the Castrins were careful not to go too far 
up the valley, but made their hunting expeditions 
in the direction of the plain. 

Persuaded that no new act of hostility between 
the two trioes was threatened, Tamal, at length com- 
pletely recovered from his wound and the weakness 
resulting from it, took up again the old course of 
his life ; but he did not experience the satisfaction it 
had hitherto given him. 

Endowed with an intelligence superior to that of 
others of his race, he was also in advance of them 
in his moral ideas, and in the loftier sentiments in- 
spired in him by gratitude for the care of Misie and 
by the beauty of the girl whose tender affection had 
perhaps saved his life, and had surely given him 
his liberty. So the gracious image of her whom he 
loved was always in his mind and heart, to distract 
his attention from things around him, and to make 
him indifferent to his occupations. Convinced that 
some time must pass before such friendly relations 
could be established between the Blairaks and the 
Castrins that he might return to Misie and renew 
the broken bonds of their courtship, he resolved to 
leave his people and make a journey into far coun- 
tries. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 53 

His imagination had long been stirred by the as- 
pect of grandeur the distant mountains wore for 
him, when in the early morning or late afternoon 
he turned his gaze in a direction midway between 
the opposite points where the sun rose and set. What 
he saw was the imposing chain of the Alps upborne 
in air, with the immensities of their snowy flanks, 
and their jagged crests whose countless ridges the 
sun dyes with tints of pink and blue. He resolved 
to go nearer to this marvelous spectacle, and to 
carry out the project during the time which must 
pass before he could again see Misie. 

The preparations for his journey were soon made, 
as he had nothing to carry but his weapons, his 
ordinary garments and a few little bundles of dried 
vegetable matter, to serve as tinder for the sparks 
he should strike with his flint. 

When he had said goodbye to his parents and the 
other members of his tribe, and had promised not 
to delay his return too long, he set out on his travels 
by a route along the foothills of the Vosges. 

It would be tedious to accompany him step by step 
through his long pilgrimage; let it suffice to point 
out in a general way how he was able to accomplish 
it. His plan was to reach each day a new station 
of the aborigines, where he rested and got the in- 
formation necessary to guide him to the next sta- 
tion on the day following. If the distance was too 
great to be covered in one day's march, he camped 
in the woods, or took refuge in some cavity of rock 
or earth, or even established himself among the 
great branches of a tree, as he often enough had 
to do, in order to be safe from the attack of little 
bands of wolves which were everywhere about. He 



54 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

came upon many swamps which he skirted, and 
streams and rivers which he forded or crossed on 
fallen trees, or even swam over, for he had known 
how to swim from childhood, learning in those 
pools near the station of his tribe, that are formed 
by mountain streams or the overflow of the Thur. 

He was generally well received in the habitations 
scattered along the route he followed, and it some- 
times even happened that he tarried two or three 
days in a place; but elsewhere he had a bad recep- 
tion, was suspected of some hostile intention, and 
held captive until it became evident that his presence 
had brought no misfortune. Once or twice he found 
himself obliged to change his route in order to avoid 
localities where two tribes were actually at war. 

It was this last cause, which on the third day of 
his journey, obliged him to turn away from the 
Vosges and proceed in the direction of the plain, 
making his way through the forests and openings 
on the side of the rising sun. Beyond them he 
crossed an undulating country interspersed with 
hills, where he saw the source of the 111, the most 
important river of Alsace. After two more day's 
journeys, he arrived at the bank of a wide river, 
whose strong, swift current filled him with wonder- 
ment, and he followed up its course on his way to- 
ward the distant mountains which he looked upon 
as his journey's end. At different points as he went 
along, he was deeply moved by the sight of the rap- 
ids of Lauffen, the fine cataract of the Rhine, and 
the imposing size of the Lake of Constance. But 
greatly impressed as he was by the grandeur of 
these aspects of nature, so new and strange to his 
ignorance, he was still more wonderstruck at the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 55 

sight of human habitations built over the very- 
waters of the lake. 

The young native of the Vosges was looking 
upon a village of lake dwellers. A few feet from 
the shore, long rows of piles began, great and high, 
set vertically in the water. Upon these a platform 
had been constructed of planks laid close together. 
On this artificial ground, that lay outstretched at 
almost a man's height above the level of the water, 
stood in regular rows substantial thatched cottages 
built of wood. In the open spaces between them 
women and children were moving about, and old 
people were sitting. On the lake, not far from this 
village thus suspended between water and air, great 
tree trunks that had been dug out their whole 
length of seven or eight feet, were being propelled 
over the surface by means of heavy sticks with a 
wide flat surface at the end, in the hands of some of 
the men in them, while others were casting out into 
the water, to draw them in presently full of fish, 
strange objects of limp and light material full of 
holes, some of them outspread, others taking the 
form of great pockets. 

Such was the marvelous spectacle which offered 
itself to Tamal's eyes, filling him with wonder and 
delight. He approached, not without emotion, and 
halted beside a man busy in straightening the posi- 
tion of some movable planks which made a passage- 
way from the shore to the aquatic town. 

Tamal was kindly received among these people, 
and spent several days with them, meanwhile ac- 
quiring the craft of making the fish nets he had so 
much admired on his arrival. His appreciation of 
the things he saw here, awakened for the first time 



56 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

in his mind thought of the progress which man may 
make in his work, and the new conception gave him 
a glimpse of the good he might do for his tribe by 
introducing among them improvements he might 
see among people he had not yet visited. With his 
thoughts tending in this direction, he gave up his 
original plan of going to the great ice-topped 
mountains, — whose long chain he now indeed saw 
stretched out not far away, — and decided to con- 
tinue his explorations in regions easier of access and 
consequently more populous. 

The farther away he went from his native place 
the more difficult Tamal found it to talk under- 
standingly with the inhabitants of the regions he 
passed through; nevertheless, when he left the 
strange village of the Lake of Constance, — over 
whose waters, as he learned, there were thirty 
others like it, — he was able to inform himself suffi- 
ciently well to direct his way toward the villages 
of the Lake of Zurich, and again, in leaving there, 
to reach some towns of the same nature on the 
Lakes of Birne, Lempach and Morat. And here 
he found a new subject for wonder and admiration. 

This was the making of weapons and tools, not 
from polished flint but from a material only just 
beginning to be known, which was obtained by ex- 
posing to an ardent heat a mixture of charcoal with 
two mineral substances that in our day are called 
copper pyrites and oxide of tin. 

From this mixture there resulted a fusible sub- 
stance, which, being run into moulds hollowed out 
of sand or earth, formed axes, spear points, arrow- 
heads, knives, daggers, fish hooks, various house- 
hold utensils, and more delicate objects such as bod- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. S7 

kins, pins and needles, and ornamental pieces. These 
were the first fruits of the discovery of bronze. 

Tamal prolonged his stay among the possessors 
of this earliest metal wealth, until he had been given 
specimens of it in exchange for the zeal with which 
he had worked in it himself; then he again turned 
westward, and making the Jura passes, he found 
himself once more in France, where he had been 
told there were also many lake dwellers, in Savoy 
and along the banks of the two rivers that to-day 
we call the Isere and the Saone. 

For a long time Tamal continued his explora- 
tions of the regions to the west of the Jura and 
Alps, making observations of the progress that had 
been made by the tribes inhabiting them. In some 
places he saw the first attempts at agriculture, in 
the cultivation of plants producing nourishing 
seeds. After being carefully gathered, these seeds 
were crushed by means of a smooth oval stone, in 
a larger stone which had been hollowed out like a 
trough, and the flour resulting from the process, 
mixed with water, made a paste, that was baked 
into little cakes on flat stones heated in the fire. 

Frequently Tamal found in general use pottery 
made of soft clay which had been baked and hard- 
ened by the heat of fire, or simply in the sun. And 
then, among the most intelligent of these people, he 
was equally astonished and delighted by the sight 
of sheep, goats, and even some oxen of the urus 
tribe, reduced to a state of domestication; and, best 
of all, dogs obedient to man and affectionately at- 
tached to him. 

It would have been to Tamal like the coming 
true of a beautiful dream, if he might have taken 



58 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

back with him to his own country some of these 
various animals; but he saw the impossibility of 
that, and thought himself fortunate to get posses- 
sion of a pair of young dogs, and to have them 
follow him to his journey's end. 

This journey had lasted for fifteen months, when 
Tamal finally returned to his tribe. He was re- 
ceived with transports of delight, which turned into 
manifestations of the greatest enthusiasm when the 
story of his travels was told, and the things he had 
brought back were displayed. Especially admired 
were the dogs, in form and size, in their erect ears 
and their tawny coats, so much like the wolves, yet 
as gentle and affectionate as the wolves were wild 
and ferocious. 

Tamal was rejoiced to learn that friendly rela- 
tions had been re-established between the two tribes 
of his native valley, and waiting only to pass a few 
days with his parents, he hastened away to his well- 
beloved Misie, returning to the Blairaks, not as a 
captive now, but as a friend, and the bearer of use- 
ful knowledge. Already informed of the success 
of his wanderings, Kerad and his tribe received 
him joyfully, and were not surprised at the signs 
of affection given him by Misie as she led him to 
her father's cabin. 

Among the treasures he had brought back from 
his journey were three bronze axes. He had given 
one to Faroe, he now offered another to Kerad, re- 
serving the third for his own use. To this rich 
present he added a lance head, two arrowheads, a 
knife, and a dagger, of the same metal, and into 
the hands of his beloved he put bodkins, pins, 
needles, and a necklace of bronze disks strung on 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 59 

a cord, whose metallic splendor surpassed anything 
hitherto seen in the valley of Saint-Amarin. 

Rejoicing in the possession of his new weapons, 
Kerad left his hut to offer them to the general ad- 
miration, and finding themselves alone together, 
Tamal and Misie rushed into each others arms. 
Their joy is not difficult to imagine, especially that 
of Misie, who had carried all this time in her mem- 
ory a picture of the Tamal wounded, weak and 
suffering, whom she had painfully helped along his 
homeward journey; while now she felt round her 
the strong arms of this fine and sturdy explorer, 
whose travels were the admiration of everybody. 

A few days later, Tamal, accompanied by his 
father, came to ask of Kerad the hand of Misie. 
It was quickly granted him, to the mutual satisfac- 
tion of the tribes, and in each of them the custo- 
mary betrothal feast was promptly given. This 
feast was preceded by the ceremony of the sacri- 
fices which the betrothed man and woman were re- 
quired to make to the genii or Superior Spirits in 
whom the men of that epoch had already adopted 
a belief. Under the guidance of the two most aged 
men of their tribes, Tamal and Misie went first to 
the cascade of the Heidenbad, and threw various 
small objects into the basin where it plunges from 
the rocks above, as an offering to the Genius of 
Water; then they turned to lay some fruit and 
portions of small game at the foot of one of the 
largest oaks in the neighboring forest, as an act of 
homage to the Spirit of the Woods; and to crown 
all, on a sacrificial pile erected near the station of 
Misie's tribe, they burned bunches of flowers, small 
leafy branches, tufts of grass and mosses and por- 



60 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

tions of birds, as a pious rite before the Spirit of 
Winds and Storms. 

In spite of the intoxicating joy of at last possess- 
ing Misie, Tamal did not lose his interest in the 
progressive ideas he had got on his travels, nor in 
his projects to better the conditions of life among 
his fellows of the Vosges; and he found a number 
of followers among the younger men. As a result 
of his advice, groups of Castrins and Blairaks set 
out at frequent intervals to journey into- distant 
quarters in search of new things, and especially to 
get possession of domestic animals. In groups of 
two, at Tamal's suggestion, they scattered in dif- 
ferent directions by routes leading to the south and 
west of their native country. These expeditions 
were continued for a number of years, and were 
more or less successful, never failing to be of some 
utility. 

The intellectual superiority of Tamal, the knowl- 
edge he had acquired, and his efforts in behalf of 
their greater welfare so endeared him to the in- 
habitants of the valley, that with the consent of 
his father and Misie's he was chosen supreme head 
of the two tribes, which thenceforth, in spite of 
the distance between their stations, were merged in- 
to one. 

Thus long years rolled by, bringing with them 
ever increasing betterment of conditions. The dwell- 
ings were roomier and better constructed; the hun- 
ters had the companionship of vigorous dogs, the 
progeny of the two brought back from his wander- 
ings by Tamal, which aided them in the chase, even 
when they pursued bears, wolves, the aurochs, or 
the wild boar. The crop of wild fruits gathered 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 6 1 

in the forests was larger, more varied and better 
husbanded; some attempts at the cultivation of 
nourishing roots began to succeed ; many goats and 
sheep were pastured about the two villages, and 
some calves had just been introduced. Weapons 
and utensils of bronze were gradually finding their 
way among these people, and coming into more 
general use. 

It was not until they had seen all these changes 
gradually accomplished, that Tamal and Misie, 
weighed down with years, died in the arms of 
their children, carrying with them to their graves 
the regret of all the members of their tribes, and 
even of neighboring hordes, that the improvements 
introduced in the valley of Saint-Amarin had not 
left without emulation, nor without some successful 
attempts at imitation. 



62 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



FIFTH VIEW. 

The bronze age. — Progress and the iron age. — End of pre- 
historic times. — The Iberians. — The Celts. — The Aquitan- 
ians. — The Ligurians. — The Massaliotes. — The Cimbri. — 
Gallic expeditions. 

The use of polished stone among the hordes of 
Europe continued no longer than was required for 
the establishment of the use of bronze, which was 
its superior in all ways, being better adapted to the 
manufacture of weapons and utensils, and at the 
same time more serviceable. One great advantage 
of this metal is the ease with which it may be forged 
and manipulated generally, when it has been sud- 
denly cooled, while gradual cooling renders it hard 
and durable; thus it can be shaped at will by the 
first process, and hardened after the desired form 
has been attained. 

Bronze foundries and manufactories were estab- 
lished at different points where the necessary crude 
material was to be procured, and constituted an im- 
portant industry of the period, which was followed 
by a corresponding and not less beneficial commer- 
cial development extending to all the European 
tribes. The relations thus formed among these peo- 
ples, were strengthened and multiplied by the in- 
terest roused in the possession and propagation of 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 63 

domestic animals and cultivated plants, of which at 
first only a few tribes had learned to avail them- 
selves. These two things may be looked upon as 
having produced the very germs of civilization and 
of the transformation of the life of the chase into 
pastoral and agricultural life. 

In order to show the progress made during the 
bronze age, it is only necessary to refer to traces 
of it that have been found by the exploration of 
tumuli in some of those dolmens which time has 
denuded of the heaped-up earth originally covering 
them; or among the remains of the lake dwellers' 
towns. The number and variety of weapons, uten- 
sils, and ornaments such as necklaces and bracelets, 
and of small implements like pins, needles and bod- 
kins, are most remarkable. 

In place of the crude pottery, misshapen and cov- 
ered with corrugations, which belonged to the age 
of polished stone, the men of the bronze age made 
vases and other things out of terra cotta, fine in 
texture, with a smooth surface, and in a variety of 
shapes, frequently ornamented with designs, and 
sometimes of sufficiently great dimensions to serve 
as receptacles for grain. 

The presence of a number of these large jars, 
with some of their contents, proves conclusively, as 
also does that of bronze sickles, that during this 
period barley, wheat, and oats were cultivated. The 
grains were no longer crushed in a stone trough by 
using a smooth stone as a pestle, but the device of a 
stationary mill-stone with a free one turning upon 
it by means of a transverse lever, was already 
known. 

From the fibres of bark, the men of this age made 



64 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

ropes and cords to be woven into fish nets, while 
from those of flax and afterward of hemp, they 
achieved the making of threads which they had the 
ingenuity to weave into cloth, and this now began 
to take the place of skins for clothing. The dis- 
covery of a number of coffins in a tumulus in Den- 
mark, has also made it clear that in this country at 
least the art of spinning wool was already known; 
for the body in one of them had been wrapped in 
woolen garments. 

The possession of domestic animals and culti- 
vated plants, added very considerable resources to 
those of hunting and fishing for the nutrition of 
the men of the age of bronze. In the early part of 
the epoch, they continued to bury their dead in 
tumuli and dolmens, with weapons and implements 
beside them; but toward its close they began to 
cremate the bodies of the dead, and to enclose the 
ashes in urns. A number of these urns have been 
recently discovered, and we shall cite a remarkable 
example, found in the exploration of a tumulus near 
Lubeck. In the upper stratum of this tumulus, in 
the loose earth, a skeleton was buried together with 
some iron implements; two meters below were 
found small stone receptacles holding mortuary 
urns and filled with calcined bones mingled with 
necklaces, pins and a knife, all of bronze. At the 
bottom of the tumulus were stone slabs forming a 
cave-like structure that contained human bones and 
axes of rough flint. 

These superimposed sepulchres well represent the 
order of succession of the rough stone, the bronze, 
and the iron ages, and they would tell a complete 
story if a fourth, containing articles made from pol- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 65 

ished stone, were found between those of the ages 
of bronze and of rough stone. 

The discovery of iron was altogether more com- 
plicated than that of bronze, the former not being 
fusible in even the most ardent heat employed in the 
earlier age. It was extracted by processes still to 
be seen in operation among the tribes of Northern 
Tartary and of Senegal. A stone oven was built 
into the side of a hillock, and was charged first with 
wood, then with thin alternate layers of charcoal 
and the very common minerals formed by oxides of 
iron. This mixture was covered by a vaulted roof 
of earth, with an opening at the summit; then 
through an opening beneath, fire was set to the 
wood. By this process, the charcoal was made to 
deoxidize the iron, and little porous masses of the 
reduced metal were deposited at the bottom of the 
furnace. By uniting a sufficient number of these, 
raising them to a glowing heat, and repeatedly ham- 
mering them out, they were welded into lumps, and 
then, by a series of similar operations, into bars of 
iron suitable for fashioning into any desired shape, 
under the action of fire and the hammer. 

At first the use of iron was intermingled with 
that of bronze, as the use of bronze had originally 
been associated with that of polished stone and 
horn. In the iron age, gold, silver and lead began 
to be known, and also the art of making pottery on 
a wheel, which had hitherto been shaped by hand. 
The more or less complete incineration of the body 
was the burial practice. 

Before the close of the iron age, industries and 
commerce had made considerable progress, as had 
also farming and grazing, mules and pigs having 



66 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

been added to the sheep, goats, cattle and horses of 
earlier times. Even the use of small bronze coins 
has been attributed to this early age. 

It was through great upheavals of the European 
territory, that the race contemporary with the mam- 
moth and the reindeer disappeared from that part 
of the world at the close of the age of rough stone, 
to give place to the Aryans, who were characterized 
by the use of polished stone. On the other hand, it 
was by slow and almost insensible transitions, that 
humanity passed from this age to that of bronze, 
from the bronze age to the iron age, and finally in- 
to the ages revealed to us by the earliest annals of 
peoples. 

The opening pages of history give the name of 
Iberians to the inhabitants of the countries toward 
which our eyes are turned, and they tell us that two 
thousand years before the modern era, their country 
was invaded from the north by the Celts, Gaels or 
Gauls. These latter drove the Iberians back across 
the Garonne, pursuing them even into Spain. Here 
pursued and pursuers eventually settled together, 
establishing an amalgamated race, the Celtiberians. 
The Iberians, however, under the name of Aquitan- 
ians, remained the dominent race to the south of 
the Garonne and in the Pyrenees region, and also 
along the Mediterranean snores, under the name of 
Ligurians. 

The Ligurian people held important commercial 
relations with the Phoenicians a thousand years be- 
fore Christ, and the founding of Nimes and Alesia 
is even attributed to the latter people. To the 
Phoenicians succeeded the Rhodians, whose settle- 
ments had lost all importance when the Phocaeans 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 6? 

under Euxenus came to found Massilia or Mar- 
seille, six hundred years before the Christian era. 

At the same time the Cimbri, under the leader- 
ship of Hu-le-puissant, descended upon the north of 
Gaul. They were not able to dispossess the Gauls 
of their territory, and only succeeded in mingling 
with them in the western sections, along the ocean, 
and in some unimportant portions of the interior, 
which for the most part remained entirely Celtic, as 
did all the eastern section bounded by the Jura and 
the Rhine. 

It was from these latter regions that there set 
forth, in the year 587 B. C, the two great ex- 
peditions of the Sigovaci and the Bellovaci, the 
former of whom went to found a colony on the 
banks of the Danube, at the foot of the Illyrian 
Alps, and the latter to found Cisalpine Gaul, in the 
north of Italy. 

In the year 39 B. C, thirty thousand Gallic 
Senones, led by their chief or Bran, overcame a 
Roman army on the banks of the Allia and cap- 
tured Rome, whose last defenders were intrenched 
within the walls. After having laid waste the city 
and plundered it, they were driven out by the suc- 
cessful onslaught of Camillus, and a greater part of 
them were massacred. 

A hundred years later, an army of Tectosages 
went out from among the Gauls to pillage Mace- 
donia and Greece, and established themselves in 
Asia Minor, in the country which took from them 
the name af Galatia. 

At different periods of this epoch, great numbers 
of Gallic warriors served as mercenaries in the 
armies of the kings of Asia, who were quarreling 



68 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

over their shares in the heritage of Alexander the 
Great, and also in the armies of Pyrrhus and of 
Hannibal. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 69 



SIXTH VIEW. 

The Gauls two centuries before the modern era. — Their 
characteristics; and customs. — Patricians, Driuds and peo- 
ple. — Gallic divinities. — The Gallic nations of Alsace. 
Struggles with the Germans. — Characteristic episode: 
Rodwig and Diela. 

Two hundred years before our own time, the 
Gauls no longer formed a single nation, mingling 
together and living under the same customs and 
with the same institutions — Iberians, Gaels and 
Cimbri alike. This great people did not now know 
anything like unity, but were divided into nearly 
eighty distinct sections, which were governed by 
their respective chiefs, known generally as Vergo- 
breti. 

The greater part of the country was covered with 
forests, and in their natural openings or in artificial 
clearings, the Gauls set up their houses of wood and 
thatch, and formed their villages, surrounding them 
by palisades of pickets and madriers. The extent 
of cultivated ground about these villages was pro- 
portional to their importance. The towns, already 
numerous, were strongly fortified and also sur- 
rounded by cultivated fields. 

Sheltered by the vast forests, the land abounded 
in springs, brooks, swamps, and water courses, 



70 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

which rendered the climate moist and the atmos- 
phere frequently heavy and tempestuous. 

The inhabitants of the country were tall and 
hardy, well built and very active. -They had clear 
cut, oval faces, with fair skin, brown or blue eyes, 
and hair brown, blonde or sometimes red, which 
they wore long, raising it above the head in the 
form of horns. They allowed a long and heavy 
moustache to cover the upper lip, and their whole 
aspect was one of alertness and the strength which 
is demanded and developed by the habits of hunters 
and warriors. 

' They lived upon acorns and other forest fruits, 
bread, milk, butter, cheese, the flesh of their do- 
mestic animals, especially pork, and numerous kinds 
of game, of which the aurochs, deer, and wild boar 
were the most sought after. For fermented drinks, 
they had beer made by the fermentation of barley, 
and hydromel, which they obtained from that of 
honey. 

The garments of the Gauls consisted of breeches, 
covering the leg; a shirt, a short tunic falling no 
lower than the knee and resembling our modern 
blouse; a surtout or short cloak, and leather foot- 
gear. The women's costume differed from the men's 
in the greater length of the tunic, and the addition of 
necklaces, bracelets, rings and a girdle. 

The chief weapons and armor of the Gallic war- 
riors were swords, axes, daggers, lances, javelins, 
shields, and different kinds of helmets, generally 
without crests. Some of the Gauls fought on foot, 
others on horseback, and still others in chariots 
drawn by two horses, which they also used in bar- 
ricading their camps. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 7 1 

The Roman historians, their enemies, pictured 
our ancestors as naturally kind and hospitable, 
faithful friends, sincere and loyal, scorning subter- 
fuge and lies, brave even to rashness, prompt in 
initiative, endowed with an active and penetrating 
mind and a vivid imagination, liking to talk and to 
listen, highly inquisitive, given to railing and jok- 
ing, and great lovers of liberty; but at the same 
time the contemporary chronicles accused them of 
being careless, fickle, boastful, hot-headed, quarrel- 
some, inclined to drunkenness, and barbaric in their 
superstitions. Such as they were, they treated the 
women of their households with great respect, con- 
sulting them in even the weightiest matters, and 
often taking them into war. 

They were dexterous workers in metals, glass, 
pottery and woven fabrics, and they appear to 
have been the inventors of wheeled ploughs, horse- 
hair sieves, and hooped casks. 

Their funerals were conducted with much pomp, 
and articles to which the dead had been attached 
were burned with their bodies, as were domestic 
animals, slaves, and sometimes even relatives. The 
most cruel sacrifices were not repugnant to these 
men, and they thought to appease the anger of their 
gods and save the lives of the sick, by putting some 
dependent to death. On more general and import- 
ant occasions, they sacrificed a number of -victims at 
a time, shutting them up in a wicker cage made to 
imitate the human form, which was placed on a 
sacrificial pile, and the torch applied. 

Each of the Gallic nations was made up of 
Druids, Patricians, and the common people, and 
matters of general interest were treated only in as- 



J2. ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

semblies of the three classes. The aristocracy com- 
prised the tribal chiefs, the chiefs of clans, the 
heads of rich families, those warriors having no 
other occupation than that of arms, and citizens dis- 
tinguished by extensive commercial or business re- 
lations. The popular class was formed by various 
grades of working men, small tradesmen, farmers, 
freedmen and servants; below these, in the lowest 
ranks, were men reduced to the state of slavery. 

The Druids were the ministers of religion, di- 
rected both public and private sacrifices, interpreted 
omens, judged criminals, settled questions of in- 
heritance, and taught the youth. Exempt from the 
payment of taxes, and from all civil and military 
duties, the Druids held a great assembly once a 
year in the country of the Carnutes, at Chartres, 
where the chief of this powerful fraternity had his 
residence. There were Druidesses as well as Druids, 
who wore a costume of white linen, fastened around 
the body by a metal girdle. . They predicted future 
events by observing stars and meteors and the en- 
trails of human victims. Some of them took the 
vow of perpetual virginity. 

Connected with the order of the Druids was that 
of the bards, whose task was to chant in verse the 
praises of the gods, the beauties of nature, and the 
glories of war ; and there was also an inferior order 
of priests, the euhages, who assisted the Druids in 
the practice of their cult, of which one of the most 
important was gathering with a golden sickle, in 
the midst of an elaborate religious ceremonial, the 
boughs of mistletoe that sometimes adorned the 
oaks. 

The chief gods worshipped by the Gauls were 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 73 

Hesus, the supreme god; Teutates, god of war and 
of the intelligence; Belinus, god of medicine and 
wisdom; Agmius, god of eloquence; Tarania, god 
of thunder; and there were numerous inferior 
deities, more or less local, such as Rhenus, god of 
the Rhine, and Vosges, god of the Vosges. The 
Gauls believed in the immortality of the soul, and 
believed so firmly that they loaned one another 
money upon the sole condition of its being repaid 
in course of the new existence into which they were 
to enter after death. 

Such were the moral and intellectual conditions 
under which the Gallic people lived, two centuries 
before Christ, conditions modified more or less by 
circumstances peculiar to the different regions, as 
was the case in the Alsatian plain. 

The Rhine, which separates that plain from the 
Germans, by the violence of its current and the 
overflow of its waters, prevented the settling of the 
west bank as thickly as would have been necessary 
to guarantee it against the aggressions of these bar- 
barians, always eager for pillage and plunder. Fed 
by the numerous tributary rivers, whose current and 
volume were increased by the climatic conditions of 
the times, the river spread its tide hither and yon 
over the lowlands along its course, and encompassed 
with its arms numerous islands and far-stretching 
swamps. So the river borders began to be habit- 
able only at some distance inward, which necessi- 
tated on the part of the Gauls of the Alsatian plain 
a vigilance unremitting and difficult to maintain, 
and helped to make them, like all frontiersmen, 
more disposed to war and more accustomed to it 
than the people of the interior. 



74 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Three of the Gallic tribes extended -their territory 
as far as the Rhine; to the south, the Rauraci, 
whose possessions lay about the northern portion of 
the Jura, and whose capital, Rauricum, was situated 
two leagues away from Basel; next, the Sequani, 
who occupied Franche-Comte and the southern ex- 
tremity of Lorraine, having for their capital city 
Vesontium (Besancon), and possessing many towns 
in Alsace — Cambe, Brisiacus, Olinus and Argentov- 
aria (Colmar) ; and to the north the Mediomatrici, 
who held all the upper portion of Alsace and the 
greater part of Lorraine, as far as the region of 
Spire and Treves, with Divodurum (Metz) for the 
capital, and for chief towns in Alsace, Helvetium, 
Broemages, Saletes, and Argentoratum (Stras- 
bourg). Later, in the time of Caesar, or a little 
before, the Mediomatrici were obliged to cede the 
northern extremity of the Alsatian plain to a tribe 
of Germanic orgin called Triboces, who, together 
with the Gallic nations, merged into the Gallo- 
Roman state. 

In these later days of Gallic independence, the 
three nations established on the west bank of the 
Rhine had to sustain the long and almost incessant 
struggle which the more barbarous Teutons kept 
alive in the hope of gaining possession of the richer 
and more fertile lands occupied by their neighbors. 
Even at times when the two great peoples, always 
hostile, were at peace or under a truce, it frequent- 
ly happened that some group of warriors from a 
Germanic Rhenish tribe, eager for glory and 
plunder, would cross the river and attempt 
depredations on the Gallic side. Their presence 
was quickly made known, and they were steadily 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 75 

withstood, till they were forced to return to their 
own country. 

It was on such adventure bent, that a band of 
Germans, after having attacked one of the rare 
Gallic villages near the river banks, were pursued 
by a troop of Mediomatrici to the Sequanian 
frontier, where some of this latter nation's horse- 
men promptly rallied to the support of their fellow 
Gauls. The Germans, now inferior in numbers, 
exhausted by privations, and relentlessly hunted 
down, were driven from forest to forest, from 
island to island, and at last were brought to bay on 
ground encircled by the waters of the Rhine itself. 
Cut off now for many days from the barks which 
had brought them over, and unable to retreat fur- 
ther, they accepted the challenge to battle, and 
fought courageously until thirty or more of them 
were either killed or wounded. 

Among those most seriously injured was the 
young Thorwald, son of the chief of a clan of the 
Mediomatrici, that was established in the foothills 
of Mount Altitona (Sainte-Odile). In the thick of 
the fight, he had charged with his lance upon a Ger- 
man of colossal size; but he was checked by his 
enemy, whose long and heavy sword beat down his 
weapon, and though slightly bent from its course 
by his shield, penetrated deep into his left side. 
Just as he was about to fall, and to receive a sec- 
ond thrust, inevitably mortal, he was rescued by the 
prompt and dexterous aid of one of his comrades in 
arms. A Sequanian horseman named Rodwig had 
just overcome one of the enemy, when he saw the 
danger threatening Thorwald a little distance away. 
Gathering his horse together for a prodigious leap, 



j6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

he hurled it upon the German, whom he struck 
down and pinned to the earth with his lance. The 
combat was now ending in the fall of the last of the 
Germans, and Thorwald's rescuer had nothing to 
do but dismount and give his attention to the youth 
whom he had so opportunely aided. 

The poor fellow's condition was so serious that 
it was quite apparent he could not be taken to his 
home, but must be hurried to the nearest Sequanian 
village, in which it chanced Rodwig lived; and 
Rodwig and his companions hastened away, bear- 
ing on litters of branches the dead body of one of 
their warriors, another too gravely wounded to sit 
upon his horse, and Thorwald almost dying. 

After they were gone, the remaining Gauls threw 
into the waters of the Rhine the German dead and 
those whose wounds prevented them from march- 
ing; separated the survivors of the enemy into 
groups, having first disarmed them and charged them 
with the bonds of the slavery they were destined to 
experience west of the Vosges; made them bear 
away two dead and two wounded Mediomatrici, 
and set out to rejoin their clan at the foot of Mount 
Altitona, where they arrived at the end of the third 
day. 

It took the Sequanians only a few hours to return 
to their village and establish Thorwald in the home 
of Rodwig, where he received the care of a priest 
versed in the art of healing, of a number of women 
used to relieving the sufferings of war, and es- 
pecially of him who was prodigal with his hospi- 
tality and with evidences of the most lively interest. 

Under these favorable conditions, Thorwald's re- 
covery was rapid, and three weeks had hardly 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. "JJ 

passed, when he had gained sufficient strength to 
return to his home. These few days had also 
sufficed to establish a sincere and firm friendship be- 
tween the two young men, which deepened as each 
discovered in the other the qualities he himself pos- 
sessed — youth and beauty, brightness and mirthful- 
ness, candor, loyalty, kindness, generosity and cour- 
age. Although Rodwig had but an obscure po- 
sition in the middle class of the men of title or mili- 
tary rank in his clan, while Thorwald was the son 
of a rich and powerful chief, they were both in- 
sensible to this difference in station, and it gave like 
satisfaction to them both, when, upon the insistence 
of the wounded youth, the Sequanian promised to 
go with him to his home and remain there for some 
time. 

When once this plan was resolved upon, Thor- 
wald was so impatient for the pleasure of it, that he 
eagerly hastened its execution, though as yet he had 
regained but a part of his usual strength. They 
must go! To this Rodwig consented, but on con- 
dition that they should take two days for the jour- 
ney which the two fine horses he was going to use 
could easily have made in one. 

The arrival of the youths caused great joy in the 
clan of Altitona, where Thorwald was greatly be- 
loved, and with the effusive tenderness lavished up- 
on him by his father, his mother, and his sister, 
were mingled the expressions of gratitude and ap- 
preciation which these three people hastened to be- 
stow upon his rescuer. 

So several days of perfect happiness passed by; 
but presently Thorwald saw that Rodwig was no 
longer sharing in the full enjoyment of the others, 



78 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

and that in spite of his efforts to conceal his feel- 
ings, his usual merry and open disposition was fre- 
quently clouded by moments of seriousness and 
silent reserve. Troubled by this change in his 
friend, Thorwald demanded the cause of it, but was 
assured that there was no other than the thought of 
their approaching separation. 

And yet, Rodwig was disturbed by an agitation 
strange to him, which he tried to quiet, and which 
distressed him the more, the more he endeavored to 
hide it; for he did try, preferring for once, in 
obedience to the dictates of loyalty, to be lacking in 
frankness. The intimacy to which he had been ad- 
mitted in the family of Thorwald, gave him op- 
portunities to perceive very early the charms of 
mind and character which made the more attractive 
the grace and beauty of his friend's young . sister, 
Diela. Satisfied in the beginning to observe and 
admire this gifted, amiable, and fascinating daugh- 
ter of the Gauls, he now felt drawn to her by an ir- 
resistible love. After vainly trying to overcome 
the feeling, hitherto unknown to him, he submitted 
to it, but with the firm resolve of concealing it in 
the depths of his heart; for he considered his po- 
sition hopeless. In fact,* possessed of only modest 
means, it was not fit that he should aspire to a con- 
nection with the wealthy family of Thorwald; and 
this difference in fortune was even less important 
than the difference in rank which separated him, a 
simple warrior of the Sequani, from the powerful 
Chief of the Mediomatrici ; moreover, could he help 
fearing that, should he make known to these peo- 
ple, who had received him so affectionately, the love 
he dared to entertain, he would lay himself open to 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 79 

the suspicion of self interest, and of a desire to be 
recompensed for the service he had rendered to 
Thorwald ? 

As firm in keeping his resolutions as he was ready 
in making them and putting them into execution, 
Rodwig after taking a most affectionate farewell, 
left his friend's hospitable home, where he had had 
so much enjoyment, and returned to his own vil- 
lage, after an absence of not more than a month. 
Here he took up the ordinary affairs of his life, 
without allowing himself to give way to the disap- 
pointment from which he suffered. He did not, 
like the Troubadours and Trouveres, later on, feel 
the need of putting into song the pains of unre- 
quited love, but contented himself with concealing 
in his heart his feelings for the fair Diela. The 
only change observable in him was that the life, 
gaiety, and carelessness which had characterized him 
hitherto, had given place to a quieter and more seri- 
ous manner, with some tendency to soltitude. Thus 
a year passed, without other incident than an oc- 
:asional meeting with Thorwald, in the home of the 
one or the other, or on the hunting ground, which 
had only served to render their friendship the more 
faithful and unalterable. 

One day Thorwald came to tell Rodwig that Diela, 
having arrived at the age of twenty, must pres- 
ently choose a husband from a number of young 
men who aspired to that honor; that upon the oc- 
casion, there would be a great feast in his family, 
and at its end, his sister, in accordance with the es- 
tablished custom, would make known which one of 
the suitors she preferred. To this announcement, 
which Rodwig heard without betraying his feelings, 



80 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Thorwald added that he was sure his best friend 
would be present at the betrothal, and that he 
should expect him at least two days in advance. It 
was a hard test for poor Rodwig, but he did not 
quail in the face of it, and two days before the feast 
day when he was to see Diela give herself a master, 
he was with her and her family, and in the midst of 
a number of young men all desirous of gaining the 
good graces of the beautiful maid of the Medio- 
matrici. 

The morning after his arrival, Rodwig found 
himself with a score of young warriors in a clear- 
ing near the village, whither Thorwald had taken 
them for some of their customary exercises and 
sports, a number of slaves going along to serve 
them with beer and hydromel. It was a varied and 
interesting crowd. Some, among whom was Rod- 
wig, were reclining on wolf skins, chatting gaily 
over their hunting exploits; other groups were ab- 
sorbed in the games of chance dear to the Gauls, or 
contending in trials of skill or strength, which gave 
rise to betting among the contestants. It was a 
question of making the most prodigiously high or 
the longest leap; of running most rapidly round a 
given course; of hurling the spear most accurately 
or shooting best with arrows, or of making the 
most vigorous blow with an ax or a sword. The 
joy of the victors and the protests and facetious 
sallies of the vanquished, filled the place with 
animation and laughter, which were only checked 
for a moment to listen to the proposal of a new 
trial of strength, made by one of the athletes who 
had thus far had the greatest number of successes. 

"Some of you," he said with an arrogant look, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 8 1 

"very nearly equalled me in the simple sports we 
have just been trying; dare you pit yourselves 
against me in something more serious? You see 
this white birch with the straight and vigorous 
shaft; let a rope be attached near the top, so that 
we may use it to pull the tree over toward the 
ground; the one who bends it farthest and holds it 
there longest, is the strongest man among us." 

The proposition of the boastful and sinewy 
Herfax was received with acclaim, and promptly 
put into execution. A number of the athletes took 
their turn at the rope, and inclined the birch to a 
greater or less degree, the top springing back when 
each reached the end of his strength. Thorwald 
was among those who had made the best record, 
Avhen Herfax took hold of the rope, made the tree 
bend lower than anyone else had done, and held it 
longest, looking triumphantly about him all the 
time. Herfax already believed himself the victor, 
when Thorwald called Rodwig and persuaded him 
to try his strength, which he knew to be superior to 
his own. The Sequanian was glad to oblige his 
friend, and Thorwald gave a cry of joy when he 
saw the tree bend slowly until it reached by far the 
lowest point to which it had been brought, and re- 
main there twice as long as it had .hitherto been 
held. 

Finding himself acclaimed by all the contestants 
except Herfax, who was filled with displeasure and 
wounded vanity, Rodwig said with a smile: "My 
success was an easy one, good friends, for the tree 
had been shaken by you all, and I had only to finish 
your work." His words were received with ap- 
preciation, and gained him new congratulations. 



82 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

He was trying to slip away to the group of youths 
with whom he had first been talking, when the gen- 
eral attention was drawn to the group where the 
gambling was going on, from which the noise of a 
quarrel was now arising. 

The slaves charged with serving beer and hy- 
dromel, had been kept busy, especially among these 
gamesters, some of whom were just beginning to 
show signs of inebriety, while others had already 
reached the drunken state. The play had become 
intense; ornaments, shields, helmets and other 
armor and even horses had changed owners. One 
of the losers had been despoiled of everything he 
possessed, even his dwelling ; and in the hope of re- 
gaining from his adversary the things he had lost, 
he proposed a fresh game, in which he should 
wager his own freedom, in the form of three years 
of personal servitude. Such stakes were too fre- 
quent among the Gauls for this one to be refused; 
but it proved fatal to the man who had thus tried 
to avenge himself, and who became an object of 
commiseration to his former companions, of whom 
he was now no longer an equal. The master he 
had just acquired, made him cruelly conscious of 
his position, by ordering him to go and get together 
his possessions, and await further commands. 

This swift and harsh use of the rights of the 
victor, aroused the indignation of some of the vic- 
tim's friends, and one of them made it evident in 
violent language, which was replied to in kind by 
the nearest friends of the other man. 

The quarrel increased rapidly in bitterness, and 
already some one had gone in search of weapons, 
which would have turned the pleasure ground into 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 83 

a field of combat, when the aged Druid Horik was 
seen approaching, whose imposing aspect and com- 
manding gesture alone brought these angry fellows 
up sharply. "Is the source of the German blood so 
completely quenched," he demanded severely, "that 
you are making ready here to spill Gallic blood ? in- 
stead of warring against the enemy, would you 
fight among yourselves? shame and anathema up- 
on you, whose vile passions have so destroyed your 
good sense, that they are driving you to fratricide! 
Remember the authority of my sacred office, and 
fear still more the occult power given me by the 
sacred mysteries of the religion of our gods ! I de- 
clare an end to this day's sport, which is becoming 
culpable. Go home, every one of you!" 

Awed and submissive, the young warriors, who 
were as superstitious as they were bellicose, made 
haste to obey the Druid's command. Thorwald, 
pained to see the sports he had arranged ended be- 
fore nightfall, returned home with Rodwig, who 
like himself had had no part in the gaming or the 
quarrel. 

Toward the middle of the next day, a hundred 
guests were assembled at tables set in the open in 
front of the homestead of the old chief Marcol. 
The company was made up of the Druid Horik, the 
elder and more notable members of the Altitona 
clan, its most renowned warriors, and a dozen or so 
of the younger men, whose personal merits made 
them eligible for Diela's choice of a husband. 

After a few friendly words to his guests, Marcol 
invited them to sit down, and the banquet began. 
The Chief occupied an elevated seat in the center. 
At his right was his daughter, next the Druid, and 



84 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

then the most aged of the remaining guests ; at his 
left sat his wife, followed by a bard whose long 
white hair and beard betokened great age, and after 
him came Thorwald and his beloved Rodwig, who 
was firmly repressing in the depths of his heart, the 
poignant suffering of his hopeless love. The re- 
maining banqueters were grouped according to 
their liking, at tables facing that of the Chief and 
his more intimate friends. 

Toward the end of the meal, Horik began to 
speak in praise of the gods, and to narrate the de- 
tails of a great sacrifice which had recently been of- 
fered them on the high plateau of the Fiery Field, 
not far from the peak of Donon. Many unfavor- 
able auspices had been observed among the Medio- 
matrici living to the west of the Vosges, and had 
been confirmed by observations made by the Druids 
upon the entrails of human vicitims immolated in 
three different vicinities. In order to exorcise the 
unknown evils' to which they believed themselves 
exposed, the people resolved to invoke the favor of 
the gods by a great sacrifice, and to this end they 
raised a great pile, surmounted by a wooden cage 
vaguely resembling a man's form, holding four 
German slaves in its lower tier, and in the upper 
three Gauls chosen by lot from the servant class. 
The wood for the sacrifice being very dry, gave out 
little smoke but an ardent flame. "And so," said 
the old Druid, "from the moment it was set afire, 
one could see long tongues of flame reaching up to 
the Germans, who, mad with pain and rage, uttered 
frightful cries, which were soon repeated by the 
Gallic victims above. It was a pious and imposing 
scene," the old priest went on, — "these men, chosen 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 85 

to make expiation, raising their voices to Heaven 
in their torture and agony; their suffering and 
death should bring down upon the Mediomatrici the 
indulgence of the god of war." 

After the speech of the Druid, the Bard took his 
turn. Rising to his full height, he brushed back 
from his forehead his long white hair, and with 
dignity as well as graceful facility, improvised his 
verses, beginning with an invocation to Belinus, the 
god of art. He sang the warlike glories of the clan 
of Alitona, and those of its chief, Marcol, and 
his aged comrades. After recounting their exploits, 
he fell into gentler measures, and extolled the 
virtues and charms of Diela — her intelligence, 
sweetness and kindness; the elegance of her tall, 
slim figure; the grace of her carriage and move- 
ments ; the freshness of her color, her delicate 
features and white teeth; the azure of her eyes, the 
abundance and softness of her long blonde hair, the 
harmonies in her voice, which he compared to that 
of the lark, the airy songster most beloved of 
the Gauls. Noisy and enthusiastic acclamations 
crowned the poetic utterances of the Bard, which 
re-echoed most in the heart of Rodwig, deepening 
the torture he endured. 

Then the proud Herfax was seen rising from his 
seat, stroking with one hand his heavy auburn 
moustache, and looking confidently about him, his 
glance softening, however, when at last it fell upon 
Diela; and in a penetrating voice, he made this 
speech: "I should be happy did I possess even a 
small part of the skill with which the honored and 
beloved bard of our clan has just paid homage to 
the merits of the young woman whom we all ad- 



86 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

mire, and whose choice many of us covet ; but I am 
only a warrior and my words are not worth so 
much as my deeds. I can only make known the 
sentiments she inspires in me, and say to her, that 
among those who dare to hope for her companion- 
ship, not one surpasses me in wealth, in stature, in 
activity, in strength and in bravery, and that in ac- 
cepting the offer I make her, she will crown all 
these advantages that I possess." 

After this speech, which aroused as many mur- 
murs as it did marks of approval, one of the 
euhages, a man of sympathetic and noble aspect, 
speaking in soft and ingratiating tones, made him- 
self heard as follows : "Whatever advantages a 
warrior may offer a wife, they are unfortunately 
offset by his repeated absences, the dangers to which 
he is exposed, his habit of frequenting places where 
gaming is too deep and there is too much drinking 
and quarreling ; and too often by the rudeness of his 
manners and his nature. How greatly preferable 
is the lot of the companion of a member of the 
priesthood, even though he be, like myself, only one 
of the inferior order of the hierarchy of priests of 
our gods. In the case of such a union, the woman 
does not have to dread the payment of taxes, or to 
undergo the anxiety and grief of seeing her hus- 
band exposed to the dangers of war and of the ex- 
cesses to which he might give himself in times of 
peace. He to whom she has confided the care of 
her life, is not forced to part from her, is exposed 
to no perils, enjoys general consideration, and oc- 
cupies a prominent place as soon as he is elevated 
to the dignity of a Druid. Such is the destiny 
which might assure a happy life to the beautiful 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 87 

Diela, should she deign to listen favorably to my 
avowals." 

There was but one other pretendent to Diela's 
hand who desired to express his thoughts or had the 
courage to try. He was a merchant, active and of 
much intelligence, already very wealthy in spite of 
his youth, and growing more so with every journey 
he made into the countries, often far distant, with 
which he had succeeding in establishing commercial 
relations. He vaunted the ever increasing com- 
forts to be procured through his career, the exten- 
sive knowledge acquired in following it, and the po- 
sition of influence it would give to the mistress of 
his house; and he ended by a warm and eloquent 
prayer addressed to Diela, to whose happiness he 
declared that he would devote his life. 

The guests now took up the thread of their con- 
versation, and were not again interrupted, until the 
moment came when the Druid announced, that ac- 
cording to the custom followed by a number of the 
Gallic nations, Diela, a cup in her hand, would pass 
in front of the guests, and stopping before the one 
she was to choose for her husband, offer the cup to 
him. Horik suggested that all keep silence while 
the girl was carrying this out, so that no word or 
movement should disturb her. 

Anxiety might now be seen on the faces of those 
whose fate depended upon the issue of this interest- 
ing ceremony, while a lively curiosity showed itself 
in the expression of all the rest, and it was only by 
a supreme effort that Rodwig succeeded in appear- 
ing calm. 

The whole assembly was moved to rise, and they 
stood in respectful attitude while Diela, serious and 



88 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

thoughtful, grasped the cup, into which her father 
had poured some hydromel, and then moved grace- 
fully toward the right, passing before the Druid and 
the aged men next to him. She continued her way 
along the ranks of all these friends or dependents 
of the old Chief, giving to each a kind or friendly 
glance; but she did not stop before any one of 
them. The young men who had raised their de- 
sires and pretensions to her, were left downcast as 
they saw that their hopes had been in vain, and 
all who were watching the silent scene expected to 
see it end without result; for Diela's course had al- 
ready taken her to the extreme left of the table 
where her family had been seated. It was there 
that Rodwig now stood, by the side of Thorwald, 
and there Diela hesitated an instant, then taking a 
step toward her brother's friend, blushing and 
smiling she held out the cup to him. 

Surprised, pale with emotion, and scarcely con- 
scious of his happiness, which was almost greater 
than he could bear, Rodwig seized the cup in one 
hand, while he took in the other the hand of Diela, 
pressing it tenderly as he asked : "Then you divined 
my secret?" 

"Easily," she replied, "when I myself was keep- 
ing the same one." Thorwald turned toward his 
parents, saying to his friend: "Brother, these are 
your father and mother." And Marcol, pressing 
Rodwig's hand, said affectionately : "My daughter 
could have made no better choice than that of the 
man who saved her brother." "As for me," added 
Diela's mother, putting her arms about her child, "I 
am now happy in having two sons equally worthy 
of my affection." 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 89 



SEVENTH VIEW. 

The Gauls attacked by the Romans. To the aid of the 
Massilians. Allobroges, Arverni and Bituit. First Roman 
province and colony of Narbo. Cimbri and Teutones. 
Helvetii. Ariovistus. Vercingetorix. All Gaul subjugated 
and partitioned into four provinces. Resignation and gen- 
eral submission of the Gauls; final opposition. Charac- 
teristic Episode: Sigor and Veda. 

Gaul had long been the terror of the Romans. 
Now they turned the tables upon her. They first 
invaded the country in 154 B. C, to aid the Mas- 
silians in their struggle with the Ligurians; these 
they reduced to submission to the Roman allies. 

In 124 B. C, the Massilians, being attacked by 
the Salyes, again called the Romans to their assist- 
ance. After a second victorious campaign, a Roman 
colony was established in Gaul, the proconsul Sex- 
tius laying the foundations of the City of Aix. 

Two years later, taking advantage of the war the 
Aedui were waging against the Allobroges, the 
Romans made an alliance with the former nation, 
and fell upon the latter, which had refused to give 
up to them the chief of the Salyes, to whom they 
had given sanctuary after his downfall. In spite of 
their alliance with the Arverni, the Allobroges were 
defeated, and so, in the following year were the 
Arverni, whose king, Bituit, captured by treason, 



90 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

was taken to Rome and led a captive in the 
triumphal procession of his conqueror, Domitius. 
The country of the vanquished Gauls was con- 
verted into a Roman province, and a short time 
afterward the submission of other Gallic tribes 
made it possible for the Romans to establish an im- 
portant colony at Narbonne. These Roman posses- 
sions just escaped destruction under the onslaught 
of an invading army of Cimbri and Teutones, 
whose armies, however, were put to rout by Marius 
at Vercellae, a hundred and one years before the 
Christian era. 

Forty years later, Caesar was in command of all 
the Gallic territory that had submitted to the 
Romans. The Sequani being at war with the 
Aedui, called to their aid Ariovistus, king of the 
Suevi, who soon made his power felt by both the 
contending nations. These now united their forces 
in an effort to repulse him, and to the same end 
they made an alliance with the Rauraci, and let a 
whole tribe of the Helvetii enter their territory. 
Caesar began by exterminating this tribe. Then he 
advanced toward the Rhine, and in a great victory 
drove Ariovistus and the remainder of his Suevi 
across the river. The exact spot where this battle 
was fought is uncertain; but judging from what is 
known of the Roman pursuit of the fleeing Ger- 
mans to the river's bank, its scene could not have 
been elsewhere than in the southern part of Alsace, 
in the country of the Rauraci and the Sequani. 

His power strengthened by his last two victories, 
Caesar had only to push forward his conquest of 
the Gallic tribes, always at war among themselves, 
and so never all resisting him at the same time. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 9 1 

And yet, in spite of these conditions so favorable to 
him, it was only after seven campaigns that he suc- 
ceeded in subduing the last of them. It was in the 
third campaign that he had to drive back beyond 
the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine, a 
formidable invasion of Germans. In the sixth, he 
was obliged to sustain a struggle against the most 
determined opposition the Gauls ever made in de- 
fense of their national independence, when from all 
sides their warriors had assembled in the country 
of the Arverni, under the command of a young 
chieftain named Vercingetorix. 

After a number of encounters, in which the Gauls 
often had the advantage, they were obliged to take 
refuge in Alesia, a stronghold situated on a height, 
which Vercingetorix heroically defended with the 
eighty thousand men still left to him. After he 
was surrounded by the enemy, he sent away his 
horsemen, who had become useless, charging them 
to make a supreme appeal to the Gallic nations. 
According to the Roman historians, who must cer- 
tainly have exaggerated the number in order to en- 
hance Caesar's glory, two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand Gauls came to the aid of Vercingetorix. But 
the Roman general had so fortified his camp, that 
the Gauls could not gain possession of it, and at the 
close of a terrific battle, they were put to flight. 
After this battle, Vercingetorix, who had taken 
part in it with all his forces, now reduced to help- 
lessness, returned to Alesia, summoned his council, 
and spoke these noble words before them: "We 
have fought for the freedom of the Gauls and we 
are vanquished. We must yield to our fate, and 
that it may be less hard for the rest of you, let me 



92 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

be delivered up, dead or alive, to Caesar; which 
shall it be?" 

Caesar was informed that Vercingetorix was 
about to surrender himself, but he demanded in ad- 
dition the laying down of all arms, and the sur- 
render of the other chiefs, and appointed as the 
place for this, an eminence in front of his quarters. 
He himself had scarcely arrived there, where he 
was to decide the fate of the vanquished people, 
when Vercingetorix was seen approaching clad in 
splendid armor and mounted on a mettlesome 
horse, which he brought to a stand before ,the 
Roman officers. Then the haughty Gaul dis- 
mounted, and without speaking a word, threw on 
the ground his helmet, his shield and his sword. 
Caesar covered him with reproaches and abuse, 
and ordered chains for the intrepid warrior, whose 
air of nobility and calmness was not disturbed by 
this odious treatment. The splendid victim of pa- 
triotism was led to Rome and thrown into a 
dungeon, from which he did not come out until 
the end of six years, when he took his part in the 
triumph of Caesar, and was then cruelly put to 
death by the headsman's axe, in 46 B. C. Four 
years before this odious execution of the Gallic 
hero, Caesar had reduced the whole of Gaul to a 
Roman province. 

Enticed by the superior civilization of the Ro- 
mans, the glory of Caesar, and the honors he heap- 
ed upon their most influential men, the care he took 
to respect the municipal governments, and especial- 
ly by the creation of a legion composed wholly of 
Gauls (called Alauda, from the sky-lark, because of 
the national love for the bird), the Gallic people 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 93 

ceased to think of their independence, which had 
been so disturbed by civil strife, and no longer of- 
fered any resistance to the Roman rule. 

They remained almost indifferent to the changes 
in administration which Agustus forced upon them 
early in his reign, during the last years before the 
modern era. Entirely disregarding their original 
national divisions, which Caesar had carefully re- 
spected, his successor merged them indiscriminate- 
ly into four provinces — Aquitania, between the 
Pyrenees and the Loire; Gallia Narbonensis, be- 
tween the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, 
the Rhone and the Cevennes; Gallia proper, or 
Celtic Gaul, between the Loire, the Seine and the 
Saone; and Gallia Belgica, between the English 
Channel, the Seine, the Saone and the Rhine. 

The Gauls showed themselves no more sensitive 
to the changes undergone by their religious beliefs 
and observances. Their gods were either repudiated 
or transformed into Roman divinities, and the 
Druids, driven further and further back toward 
Armorica, were replaced by priests of the Latin cult. 

The stamping out of the spirit of national inde- 
pendence was not so complete but that there were 
left in many generous hearts lively sentiments of 
opposition and of hatred toward the alien enemy, 
which were oftenest to be found in out-of-the-way 
places, least exposed to the allurements of the Ro- 
man civilization. Such a spirit had been preserved 
unsullied among a little Gallic clan dwelling in the 
Valley of La Roche, almost entirely cut off from 
contact with the neighboring regions, at the foot of 
the Vosges Mountains that bear up the plateau of 
the Champ-du-feu and the lofty crest of the Donon. 



94 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

The chief of this clan was the brave Sigor, whose 
grandfather had met his death by the side of Bituit, 
on the battlefield of the Arverni and the Allobroges, 
and whose brother had fallen at his side under the 
walls of Alesia. With the old warrior lived his 
daughter Veda, a young Druidess, who, after visit- 
ing the various retreats of the priests and priestesses 
of the isle of Sein and the forests of Amorica, had 
returned to consecrate her life and affection to her 
father. Her personal charms and her admirable 
qualities of heart and mind, made her worthy of 
the great love her father had for her, and together 
they strove to make of the son and brother Naxur, 
a man deserving of their attachment and that of 
Sigor's followers. 

Father and daughter were often pained to see 
that many qualities they desired for Naxur, failed 
to develop .in him. He was strong and handsome, 
skillful in all bodily exercises, pleasant and kindly, 
and had a bright mind; but he was frivolous, care- 
less, forgetful even in important matters, eager for 
novelty, and little responsive to lofty ideas and en- 
thusiasms. 

These defects became more and more evident, 
and when he was approaching his twentieth year, 
he confessed to his sister his ardent desire to leave 
the clan of the Rock and go to some one of the 
Gallic cities that the Romans were beautifying by 
their works of engineering and art and the effects of 
their civilization in general. His ambition was to 
learn their language, to acquire the knowledge they 
had, and to become acquainted with their customs 
and habits and the mode of their daily life. "I 
want," he said, "to leave behind my half savage 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 95 

ignorance, and open my eyes to the light which 
these strangers possess, and with which they dazzle 
us; they will have shed it all over Gaul before it 
penetrates into our native valley, unless I go to 
them and bring some of it back with me." 

Veda, deep-rooted like her father in all that con- 
stituted the Gallic nationality, and imbued with his 
hatred of the conquerors of their country, fought 
against these plans of her brother, and was filled 
with despair when she saw that he was bent upon 
carrying them out. For she knew how indignant 
Sigor would be when he learned of them, and that 
dissensions and probably a break between father and 
son would follow. 

As impatient to have new desires fulfilled as he 
was ready to entertain them and obstinate about 
giving them up, Naxur let little time pass before 
making his present plans known to the old chieftain, 
who tried, but in vain, to oppose them with his 
parental authority. The ungrateful son was master 
of his affairs, and breaking the ties which attached 
him to his family, his clan, and his native village, 
he set out for Argentoratum, promising, however, 
that he would return after a sojourn of a year at 
the most. 

In these final days before the opening of the mod- 
ern era, Argentoratum (Strasbourg) had already 
become an important city, on account of the number 
of its inhabitants and its situation on the large River 
111, which in its course of a hundred and fifty kilo- 
meters, gathers up from the Alsatian plain the wa- 
ters of many rivers descending from the Vosges, 
and goes on to empty them into the Rhine, only a 
little way from the city. This combination of ad- 



96 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

vantages had led the Romans to choose the place 
for the establishment of one of their strongest mili- 
tary posts and the active development of their po- 
litical, administrative, and commercial resources. 
Latin was spoken there as freely as Gallic, and the 
various institutions already founded in it, gave to 
Argentoratum all the characteristics of the large 
Gallo-Roman cities of the Augustan age. 

Naxur was enchanted by the sight of novelties he 
had come to inquire into during the time he had 
given himself for remaining in the city. In spite of 
his father's disapproval of his project, he had fur- 
nished Naxur with some means for carrying it out, 
and also with an appeal for his son's aid and pro- 
tection, which he had addressed to several of his old 
friends residing in Argentoratum. 

With the eagerness he put into the pursuit of 
everything new to him, Naxur devoted himself to 
the study of the language, customs and habits of 
the Romans, and of the commercial affairs devel- 
oped by their presence, even connecting himself 
with some of these so successfully as to assure an 
easy competence. He was very soon brought into 
notice by his abilities, his education, — so superior to 
that of most men of his race, — his skill in the use of 
his physical strength, and his pleasing disposition. 
He was quick to make acquaintances of his own age, 
among both Gauls and Romans, and entered gaily 
into all their pleasures. As he had intended, he 
was no longer the demi-savage of the Valley of the 
Rock, but had become an attractive and companion- 
able fellow, welcome in the most distinguished fam- 
ilies of Argentoratum. 

But his successful career did not make him forget 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 97 

his affection for his father and sister. He informed 
them of his affairs, from time to time, in missives 
which he thought must be agreeable to them, but 
which, on the contrary, increased their regrets and 
sorrow on his account; for each succeeding one 
made them see more clearly the growing distance 
that separated him from them. As they had ex- 
pected, the time set for his return had passed with- 
out it, and this but added to their grief, which each 
succeeding )^ear deepened. 

Among the Romans occupying official posts at 
Argentoratum, was the uncle of a young centurian 
of the eighth legion, with whom Naxur had en- 
tered into intimate friendship. Kindly received by 
this relative of his friend Marcus, Naxur the more 
assiduously availed himself of his hospitality, be- 
cause of the presence in the house of a niece, Vir- 
ginia, the young centurian's sister, who was pos- 
sessed of all the attractions Italy lavishes upon the 
daughters of her fortunate climate. 

Promptly intoxicated by the charms of this young 
and beautiful stranger, Naxur fell violently in love 
with her, and thought himself the happiest of mor- 
tals, when he found that his passion was not dis- 
couraged by the object of it. 

Marcus saw no obstacles, and informed his uncle, 
who also had no opposition to offer; however, he 
made it a condition of his consent to his niece's mar- 
riage with a Gaul, that the latter should give un- 
questionable proof of his loyalty to the Roman rule. 

After much reflection and deliberation, it was 
agreed, that both to furnish the guarantee exacted 
of Naxur, and to assure his future and Virginia's, 
the best thing would be for him to join the Gallic 



98 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

legion, in which, thanks to his aptitude and his 
superiority to the majority of his compatriots, as 
well as to the influence of the Roman functionary, 
he would be eventually promoted to the rank of cen- 
turian. 

This project, promptly put under way by those 
most interested, was carried out with no delay or 
difficulty, and it only remained to make the whole 
thing acceptable to Naxur's father, for his consent 
was considered by Virginia to be essential to her 
own. 

When informed of these facts by a message from 
his son during the fifth year of his absence, Sigor 
made no reply. However, following the prompt- 
ings of his inconsequential mind, Naxur did not 
doubt that just as his father had yielded to per- 
suasion before, he would now do so again, in the 
matter of the marriage with Virginia, especially if 
he were given an opportunity to judge, of her char- 
acter. From the moment he got this idea into his 
head, Naxur had no thought for anything else but 
making the journey to the Valley of the Rock, in 
company with Virginia and Marcus, so that he 
might present them to Sigor and Veda, whose af- 
fection he thought they would surely win. Used to 
seeing the friendliness which was the rule between 
the Gauls and Romans about him, he forgot his fa- 
ther's patriotic sentiments and his hatred of his 
country's conquerors, not even thinking to make 
these things known to Virginia and her relatives, 
whom he assured that the old man's silence could 
have no significance antagonistic to their views. He 
pictured in rosy colors the little journey to the Val- 
ley, described enthusiastically the beauty of the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 99 

mountains and his eagerness to see them again, es- 
pecially in the company of his friends, and told 
them of his sister's unchanging affection for. him, 
and of his father's generous and hospitable ways. 
He was eloquent and he was beloved. It ended in 
his obtaining the promise of Marcus and Virginia 
to go with him to the Valley of the Rock. 

And meanwhile, in this secluded spot, sorrow and 
indignation had been filling Sigor's heart, from the 
moment he received the last and fatal message from 
his son; while Veda, though she shared her father's 
feelings, made efforts to console him ; but they were 
in vain. 

One day, at the end of a beautiful morning, fa- 
ther and daughter were seated in elevated seats at 
the head of a table where they were finishing their 
meal and presiding over that of a score of retainers 
and servants, their usual table companions, when 
one of their shepherds came running in, and made 
haste to inform them that two Roman knights and 
a lady in a litter borne by mules, were just arriving 
outside the palisade that surrounded the village. 

"Let them be admitted," said Sigor, whose out- 
ward calm was not disturbed by a presentiment of 
trouble which he nevertheless felt: "Let them be 
admitted, and taken to the building reserved for 
travellers; my daughter will be there to receive 
them. Veda, go to this lady and her companions, 
and see that they are treated with the respect due to 
guests, whoever they may be." 

After an absence long enough to greatly increase 
her father's anxiety, Veda, agitated and fearful, re- 
joined him in the dining hall where he had remained 
alone, and informed him that she had just seen 



100 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Naxur, his friend Marcus, and Virginia, the Roman 
girl Naxur wished to marry. "Your son," she 
said, "has come back to me with expressions of 
warm and tender affection, and he is impatient to 
show the same feeling to you. The strangers with 
him appear to be people of distinction, and worthy 
of all respect and interest. O my father, I tremble 
to see you so moved! Remember that Naxur is 
my brother and that he is your son; remember that 
bound as I am by my vows, I can give you no de- 
scendants, and that without Naxur the clan of the 
Rock will see in you the end of our glorious line of 
chieftains. O my father, whom I love so tenderly 
and venerate yet more, be indulgent, do not be 
severe!" 

Sigor remained a long time buried in deep reflec- 
tion, showing in spite of himself signs of the violent 
strife going on within his soul, and the contra- 
dictory feelings which were agitating him. At 
length, his face took on an expression of firm reso- 
lution, and he told his daughter to go for Marcus 
and Virginia and take them to the reception hall, 
where he would wait for them. 

He had been there but a few moments when Veda 
entered, holding Virginia by the hand, and followed 
by Marcus, the sight of whose Roman dress sent a 
tremor through the old chieftain, which did not, 
however, hinder him from a courteous exchange 
with the strangers of the civilities prescribed by 
custom. 

After they were all seated, the brother and sister 
together, and the daughter beside her father, Sigor 
opened the interview by saying, "Although I have 
learned from my son, what the relations are that at- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IOI 

tach him to you, young strangers, I wish a few- 
words of explanation as to the reasons for your 
coming to my home." 

"I will tell you, very simply and quite sincerely," 
Marcus replied : "Your son had been my friend for 
more than three years, when my uncle, accompanied 
by my sister, came to Argentoratum, to carry out 
some important administrative measures, with which 
he has now been concerned for more than a year. I 
presented Naxur, and he was well liked by them 
both. He fell in love with my sister, who after a 
little time accepted his suit, very greatly to my satis- 
faction. Our relative, to whose guidance Virginia 
submits with a very warm affection, put no ob- 
stacles in the way of Naxur's aspirations; but he 
consented to fulfill his wishes only upon proof of his 
loyalty to the present government. This led Naxur 
to become a centurian in the Gallic Legion, and we 
supposed that this advantageous position would be 
highly appreciated by his family, and would make it 
agreeable to them to have him united to ours. So it 
was not without surprise, that we learned of your 
failure to make any response in the matter. How- 
ever, Naxur attributed your silence to nothing but 
the habits of your isolated life, and had little trouble 
in persuading my sister and me to come with him in 
order to pay our respects to you, in your twofold 
dignity of father and Chief of the clan of the Rock. 
Need I add that we are astonished at what has hap- 
pened since our arrival, and begin to fear that our 
visit is not being taken upon its true merits ?" 

"Do not believe," Sigor hastened to say, his voice 
betraying his emotion, "that I am capable of judg- 
ing so unjustly what you have done loyally and with 



102 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

the best intentions. On the contrary, I appreciate, 
and my daughter appreciates still more, the feelings 
that prompted you to come here. So it is with re- 
gret that I shall perhaps wound them in making 
known to you my own, and the mistake that Naxur 
committed in not making you acquainted with 
them." 

"It is a hundred and fifty years since your people 
began to attack mine, and from that time to this my 
family has played its part in the struggles between 
them. In spite of all their efforts, which were un- 
availing because of the divisions among themselves, 
the Gauls have been forced to submit to the power 
of Rome. But whatever may be in the present, and 
whatever the future has in store, forgetfulness of 
the past ought never to be found in the hearts of 
those who fought against your legions, and saw 
them shed the blood of fathers, brothers, and 
friends, load with chains and sell as slaves more 
than a hundred thousand of their vanquished coun- 
trymen, and crush under foot the independence of 
their native land. I, an old soldier of Vercingetorix, 
feel yet the horror of the cruelties heaped upon that 
hero, and to the love I bear my country, I join a 
hatred inspired in me by the nation that has made 
itself her mistress, whatever be its grandeur, its 
power, and its social superiority. These passions 
do not, however, blind me to the injustice there 
would be in making them personal, and I as truly 
esteem the Roman who serves his country well, as 
I scorn the Gaul who repudiates his. So it cannot 
be an offence to you, brave soldier, faithful to your 
duty, nor to your young sister, whom one need only 
see to esteem and like, when I make it known to you 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO3 

that neither Sigor nor his daughter would volun- 
tarily consent to an alliance with a Roman house. 
As to Naxur, he has long forgotten or disdained 
my authority; he is free to act as he will." 

"Noble Chieftain," replied Marcus, "without see- 
ing the justice of your rancor and your futile re- 
sistance to what cannot be changed, I bow respect- 
fully before the feeling that moves you. So far as 
concerns Naxur, whom I must reproach with hav- 
ing dealt very lightly with my family, I leave my 
sister to decide what the result shall be." 

Then Virginia, although still having some diffi- 
culty in speaking the Gallic, announced her firm 
decision never to marry into a family whose affec- 
tion she did not have, and whose impressions of her 
were such as to be detrimental to her dignity and 
self-respect. 

Veda going over to her, took Virginia's hand im- 
pulsively and pressed it to her heart, saying, "Put 
that last thought far from you, I entreat you! In 
spite of his faults, I love my brother as I have al- 
ways loved him, and you who have accepted and 
returned his love will leave with me an ineffaceable 
memory, full of gratitude and regret." 

Marcus now expressed his desire to terminate 
the painful interview, and to set out immediately, 
in order to reach before the end of the day, the 
village in the plain where they had passed the pre- 
ceding night; and he persisted in his determination, 
although Sigor urged him to prolong their stay till 
the next day, so that his sister might take a much 
needed rest. 

Yielding to the will of the young Romans, 
the Gallic Chieftain received their good-byes, and 



104 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. . 

charged Veda to see that all arrangements be 
made for their departure, and that an escort of 
horsemen be sent to accompany them to the out- 
skirts of the Valley of the Rock. 

When she had seen her father's orders carried 
out, Veda, all in tears, returned to tell him of 
Naxur's grief at the departure of his friends and 
at the coldness of their farewell, and his impatience 
to be admitted in his turn into the presence of 
Sigor. . 

A few minutes later the old Chief saw his son 
enter with Veda, and at an imperious gesture on 
his part, halt a few steps away. Naxur no longer 
wore the long hair and moustache of the Gaelic 
warriors, and he was dressed in the military uni- 
form of his rank in the Gallic Legion; his figure 
and carriage were altogether martial, and he 
looked remarkably handsome. He appeared to be 
violently agitated, and could scarcely control him- 
self under his father's gaze, but broke into the com- 
plaints and reproaches with which his mind was 
filled. 

"Is this the way, after years of absence, I must 
be received by my father, in the house where my 
mother gave me birth? This dwelling has indeed 
become inhospitable when it drives away people 
dear to me, whom I have brought here to present 
to the chief of the clan of the Rock, that they might 
pay their respects to him! What am I to think of 
such a welcome, and how explain it?" 

"You should consider," said Sigor, in firm and 
severe tones, "that you are standing before a chief 
whose authority you have challenged, and a father 
whom you have wounded in every feeling. You. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO5 

who, in spite of my opposition, left me, upon the 
pretext of studying for a year the so-called progress 
of the Gauls, in order that upon your return you 
might teach your brothers of the Clan of the Rock 
to enjoy it also, — what have you done since then? 
You have prolonged your stay in a city which has 
become more Roman than Gallic, and you have 
brought back from it none of that light which was 
to illumine a prosperous future for your native val- 
ley. 

"Forgetful of your duty to me and to those whose 
chief you should become after me, you have 
entered into friendly relations with the oppressors 
of your country, and you have acquired not only 
their language, but also the ways of their life ! 

"You have accepted the transformation of your 
gods into new and strange divinities ; you have for- 
gotten the glory and freedom of your country, to 
wear the yoke of the conquerors who crush her in- 
solently under foot! You have clasped in yours 
Roman hands still warm with the blood of your 
compatriots whose fathers perished with mine on 
the battle fields of the Arverni, under the swords of 
the fathers of your new friends! You have for- 
gotten the thousands of Gauls dragged to Rome as 
slaves, where they were sold and where they are 
still sold like worthless cattle! 

"Without regard for the length and purity of my 
line, you would have given me Roman children for 
my descendants, and in order to attain this odious 
result, you have descended to the rank of a Roman 
mercenary !" 

Crushed as Naxur was under the weight of these 
reproaches, he nevertheless cried out : "I am a cen- 



106 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

turian in a legion of Gauls — Gauls alone!" "Yes," 
Sigor replied bitterly, "a Gallic legion under hire, 
and at the orders of the Romans ! You are noth- 
ing but a traitor, I tell you — traitor to your gods, 
traitor to your country, traitor to your fathers and 
your brothers ! You have repudiated them all, and 
through my lips they repudiate you. And I — I 
repudiate you as my son! Go, leave this home that 
you defile by your presence and whose first dis- 
honor is in your shame! Leave it forever! I ban- 
ish you, I 

"Father, O father, do not curse him," cried Veda, 
overcome with anguish. 

"Be it so," said Sigor; "out of love for you and 
in remembrance of your mother, I will not curse 
him, but I deliver him up to the rage of Taranis, 
whose bolts may perhaps hinder him from prolong- 
ing too far a life of shame and treason." 

Almost beside himself with grief, Naxur rushed 
out of the room in which his father had judged and 
condemned him. Veda followed, and after bidding 
her a hopeless good-bye, he sprang upon his horse, 
and at a mad gallop fled from his home, which he 
was never again to see. 

From that fatal day, a mournful sadness reigned 
in Sigor's dwelling. The weight of the years, which 
hitherto had not told upon his vigorous old age, 
now gradually enfeebled him, and in the end over- 
came him. In a few years' time he died in his 
daughter's arms, still cherishing the hope that the 
Gallic race would some day regain its independence. 

When the Clan of the Rock had chosen a new 
chieftain, Veda retired to a quiet corner of her 
father's domain. Always keeping herself informed 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO7 

of her brother's fortunes, she learned that very soon 
after their father's death he had perished gloriously, 
after showing heroic courage in a battle fought by 
the Gallic Legion against the Germans, near the con- 
fluence of the Mozelle and Rhine. 

It was not till twenty years of loneliness and sor- 
row had passed, that Veda in her turn followed those 
she had so greatly loved. The remembrance of the 
Druidess was long cherished by the Gauls of the 
Valley of La Roche. 



108 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



EIGHTH VIEW. 

Revolts of Sarcovir, Vindex, Civilis and Sabinus. A dis- 
tinct Gallic Empire from Posthumus to Tetricus. — Insurrec- 
tion of the Bagaudae. — Confederation of Alemanni and of 
Franks. — Probus, Constantius Chlorus, Constantine, Con- 
stantius, Julian, Valentinian, Abrogast, Alaric, Aetius, 
Atilla, Cladion, Merowig. — State of Latinized Gaul. — Archi- 
tectural and engineering works and chief cities of Alsace. 
— Roman roads. — Introduction of Christianity. — Invasion of 
Gaul in the fifth century — Condition of Alsace upon arrival 
of Attila: — Scene descriptive of the ravages of the Huns. 

For five centuries, Gaul made part of the Roman 
Empire, and was one of its most powerful and flour- 
ishing provinces; from the time of the reign of 
Augustus, there were not more than three uprisings 
of any importance. 

In the year 21, A. D., the Aedui and some other 
tribes revolted against Tiberius. Their leaders were 
Florus, of the Treviri, and the Aeduan Sarcovir. 
After a first defeat, Florus killed himself, while 
Sarcovir continued the struggle, finally retiring to 
Autun, which he had previously captured. How- 
ever, seeing the futility of his position, he went 
with his principal chieftains to an isolated dwelling 
in the country, where he committed suicide. His 
friends then fired the house and killed one another. 

In the year 68, the Aedui, the Sequani and the 
Arverni, under the command of Vindex, proclaimed 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IOO, 

as Emperor in opposition to Nero, Galba, command- 
er of the Spanish Legions. The coalition was de- 
stroyed by Virginius, Commander of the Legions 
of the Rhine, and Vindex ran himself through with 
his own sword. 

The next year Civilis stirred up the Belgae, the 
Treviri and the Lingores, and proclaimed a Gallic 
Empire, with Sabinus, a member of the last named 
tribe, as head. Vanquished by the Sequani, whom 
he had attacked because they remained faithful to 
Rome, Sabinus had the report spread that he had 
perished in the burning of his own dwelling, to 
which he himself had set fire. In reality, he had 
taken refuge in an underground vault, where he 
lived for nine years with the aid of his wife, Epo- 
nina, who meanwhile bore him two children. The 
unfortunate family was at last captured and led to 
Vespasian. 

"See," Eponina said to the Emperor, as she 
pointed to her children: "I have nutured them in 
a tomb, that with me they might demand your grace 
for their father." Then perceiving that her prayer 
was denied, she added : "Put me to death with 
him ; for I prefer the night of the grave to the light 
of day sullied by the sight of you." Vespasian, 
sparing only the children, delivered the two Gauls 
up to torture. Civilis, who had maintained his po- 
sition in the north, in the year 70 concluded an hon- 
orable peace, which put an end to the efforts made 
by the Gauls through their love of independence. 

They succeeded, however, in becoming a distinct 
empire in 259, but it was under a Roman general, 
Postlutmus. He made a splendid repulse of the 
Barbarians, who for a long: time had been incessant 



IIO ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

in their attacks. This Restorer of the Gauls, as he 
was called, was assassinated, with his son, by his 
own soldiers, whom he had refused to allow to sack 
Mayence. Three other emperors followed in turn, 
and then the line ended in Tetricus, who was de- 
feated by Aurelian, and surrendered to him in 270. 

No sentiment of patriotism caused the insurrec- 
tion which broke out toward the end of the third 
century; it was due entirely to the poverty from 
which Gaul was suffering, drained as she was by 
the -ever-increasing taxes which Rome exacted of 
her provinces. The Gallic peasants under the name 
of Bagaudae, rose in a mass, laid waste city and 
country, and were put down only after a number of 
battles, the last of which took place near the con- 
fluence of the Seine and the Marne. 

To protect its Rhenish frontiers, the Empire had 
to wage incessant warfare against the invading 
hordes of the nations whose westward progress had 
been checked by the river, that thus became the 
separating line between the race of the Celts and 
the various peoples who had successively originated 
from the north and east. Among these hordes two 
great confederations stood out, formed by different 
elements, as their names indicated — Alemanni (men 
of all tribes), and Franks (free men). 

In the year 277, the Franks, accompanied by Bur- 
gundias and Vandals, invaded Gaul, capturing and 
pillaging seventy cities and towns. They were driven 
back across the Rhine by Probus, to whom the Al- 
satians and the other Gauls owe the introduction 
of vine culture. 

In 292, Gaul, Spain and Great Britain were united 
in a single government, established by Diocletian, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. Ill 

and by him confided first to Constantius Chlorus, 
and then to his son Constantine. In 310, the latter 
gained a great victory over the Franks, and in 320 
Crispus, during his imperial rule, defeated them 
again, as he also did the Alemanni, thus confirm- 
ing the peace that Alsace had enjoyed since the ad- 
vent of Constantine. 

During the reign of Constantine's son, Constan- 
tius, Gaul was again ravaged by the Germans, who 
after sacking forty-five towns, settled on the west 
bank of the Rhine in the northern part of Alsace. 
To put an end to this alarming invasion, Constan- 
tius sent into Gaul his cousin and brother-in-law, 
Julian, then twenty-four years old, and thus far 
more interested in literary studies than in the mili- 
tary art. 

The young general had numerous obstacles to 
surmount, for he arrived in the middle of winter, 
to take command of an army small in numbers, badly 
disciplined, and for the most part under the com- 
mand of a leader who infamously withdrew his 
troops from battle, leaving Julian to face thirty-five 
thousand men with thirteen thousand. In spite of 
this betrayal, the enemy were killed, captured or 
hurled into the Rhine, near Argentoratum, and on 
the way back to his winter quarters Julian captured 
a considerable body of Franks that he surprised on 
the banks of the Meuse. 

After passing the end of the winter of 358 at 
Lutetia (Paris) in the palace of the Thermes, Julian 
cleared the entire west bank of the Rhine of the 
barbarian hordes, and forced them to return twenty 
thousand legionary soldiers, who had become their 
captives in the course of the preceding years. 



112 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

After the death of Julian the barbarians invaded 
the north of Gaul anew, and from 365 to 368 Val- 
entinian was occupied in resisting them, crushing 
them out, or driving them back across the Rhine. 
During this time he had a series of forts and towers 
built along the river from its course to the sea, for 
the protection of the west bank. From 375 to 395 
the successors of Valentinian admitted some of the 
barbarian chieftains to the highest offices of the 
Empire, and one of them, Abrogast, was put at the 
head of the army of Gaul. 

In 406, Alaric, breaking through all obstacles, 
even captured Rome. The Burgundians had become 
established between Lake Geneva and the confluence 
of the Rhine and Moselle, while the Suevi, the Van- 
dals and the Alans swarmed over the Pyrenees, 
without attempting to settle in Gaul. In 412, the 
southern part of the country was occupied by the 
Visigoths, the northeastern part by the Franks, and 
only a portion of the center was kept free from the 
invaders by the Roman, General Stilicho. Aetius, 
who replaced him in this command, routed these 
stranger hordes and put them to flight in a number 
of battles fought in the course of the years between 
428 and 450. 

In 451, Attila crossed the Rhine at the conflu- 
ence of the Necker, destroyed Argentoratum, May- 
ence, Metz and other towns, massacred the inhabi- 
tants of the region, and ravaged all the northeast- 
ern portion of Gaul. Aetius, reinforced by the 
Franks, the Burgundians, the Alans, the Visigoths, 
who were already established in Gaul, and some 
Saxons whom the sea had driven upon the coast of 
Normandy, forced Attila to retreat into the plains 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II3 

of Champagne, and destroyed his army in a great 
battle near Chalons. 

So Gaul was delivered from the Huns ; but it was 
still partitioned among the different nations which 
had formerly invaded it and which continued to ex- 
pand there. The Franks, governed successively by 
Clodion, Merowig and Childeric, possessed the 
whole of southern Gaul, when in 481, Clovis, the 
son of Childeric, succeeded his father. 

This epoch may be considered to have terminated 
the Gallo-Roman period, during which Alsace and 
the western borders of the Rhine continued to be, 
as they had been since the arrival of the Celts, the 
theatre of perpetual warfare between the Gallic and 
German peoples. 

From the second century, Gaul had become en- 
tirely Latinized in language and mode of life, par- 
ticularly among the upper classes. The schools of 
Autun, Lyons, Bordeaux and Marseilles were fa- 
mous, and furnished great numbers of grammarians 
and orators, not only for the country itself but even 
for Rome. The people adopted the use of a new 
language, the Romance, which forms the ground- 
work of the dialect still spoken in our own time in 
the highland districts of the Vosges valleys of La 
Roche, Diepvre, Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines, Orbey, 
Lapoutroye and Giromagny, and in the vicinity of 
Belfort. 

Gaul was filled with temples, triumphal arches, 
aqueducts, baths, amphitheatres, monuments, sump- 
tuous villas, and wonderful roads bordered by se- 
pulchres. The fountains, the public squares, and 
even private houses, were adorned with statues of 
marble and various metals. On all sides rose altars, 



114 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

both public and private, the greater part of them 
erected in honor of Mercury. 

The Romans also enlarged and fortified many 
Alsatian towns, among others Mons Brisiacus, Old 
Brisach, then situated on the west bank of the 
Rhine, but which the river left definitely on the 
east bank, at the ' beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, after having swept around first one and then 
the other side of it, and even both sides at a time, 
for more than three hundred years. Among all 
these Alsatian towns, Argentoratum was the most 
important, on account of its pre-eminence in the 
manufacture of arms. It produced battering rams, 
coats of mail, shields, helmets, swords, lances, bows 
and arrows, gauntlets and shoes with iron trim- 
mings, and practiced the arts of gilding, silvering 
and chasing armor and weapons. 

As in the other parts of Gaul, the cities in Alsace 
were embellished with architectural works of Roman 
construction; yet no remains of theatres, aqueducts 
or arches are to be found in them. The temples 
alone were numerous, and remains of them have 
been uncovered in the vicinity of Dagsbourg, at 
Augst, on Mount Donon, and about Altstadt and 
Niederbronn; the one on the Rhine road, at Ott- 
marsheim, still exists entire, and is actually used as 
a church. So far as concerns the temples in the 
large towns, they were mingled in the general ruins, 
at their devastation by the hordes of Attila and the 
other barbarians. 

The vestiges of a bath were found at Bronxwiller, 
in 1735; and a century later the remains of a bath- 
ing establishment were discovered in a vineyard near 
Bernheim. Among them was a large and superb 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II5 

mosaic, in a state of perfect preservation, which 
appeared to have served as the floor of a vast pool or 
room, and was still surrounded by ruined walls. 
As this remarkable piece of work could neither be 
preserved on the spot where it was found nor left 
to go to ruin there, it was transported to the mu- 
seum at Colmar, where it occupies a considerable 
part of the floor space of the old church of the Un- 
terlinden. It is to be regretted that a little of its 
original perfection was lost through the inevitable 
difficulties of transferring it. 

All about Alsace, as evidences of the Gallo-Ro- 
man epoch, are found coins, tiles, tombs, sculptured 
stone, statues, altars, weapons and pottery. The 
Colmar Museum possesses a great number of these 
antiquities, most of which were found in the village 
of Horbourg, lying on the 111, a kilometer from the 
city that itself occupies the site of ancient Argento- 
varia. 

Roads and fortifications were the chief work of 
the Romans in Alsace. The highways established 
by them, remains of which are still to be seen at 
many points, took the following routes : From 
Ottrott to Altitona (Sainte-Odile) ; from Besancon 
to the Rhine; from Italy, by way of Switzerland, 
to Augst, Kembs, Ottmarsheim, Banzenheim, Bris- 
ach, Ell, Strasbourg, Mayence, and on to the mouth 
of the Rhine; from the country of the Rauraci to 
Soleure, in Helvetia, by way of Montpertuis and 
the valley of the Birs ; from Besancon to Mandeure, 
Granvillars, Largitzen and Kembs; from Illsach to 
Brisach ; from Thann to Epinal, through the valley 
of Saint- Amarin ; from Horbourg to Elsenheim, 
Markolsheim and Ell ; from Strasbourg to Brumath, 



Il6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Lauterbourg and Spire; from Brumath to Saverne 
and Metz; from Alsace into Lorraine, through the 
valley of Schirmeck; and from Alsace into Lor- 
raine through the valley of Villi. 

The village of Ell just mentioned, is situated on 
the right bank of the 111, near Benfeld, three 
leagues from Strasbourg. On the site which it 
occupies between these two cities, there stood in 
the Roman period the town of Helvetus, which must 
have been very flourishing if we may judge from 
the number and importance of the Roman antiqui- 
ties that have been found there, including statues 
of Pallas and other divinities, and altars dedicated 
to Mercury, Hercules, Minerva, Vesta and Apollo. 
At Benfeld, not far away, is said to have been a 
temple of Mercury, which was demolished by Saint 
Maternus, supposedly the first apostle of Christian- 
ity in Alsace, toward the end of the third century. 

It is generally admitted that Saint Amand was 
the first Bishop of Strasbourg, in the last half of 
the fourth century, but that there was no well or- 
ganized Christian Church in Alsace before the sixth 
century. It was not until then that the bishopric 
of Strasbourg was firmly established, later than that 
of Metz, and very much later than that of Lyons, 
which, during the first three hundred years of our 
era, possessed the largest Christian community of 
all those established in Gaul. 

The turmoil, invasion, devastation and slaughter 
that were heaped upon Gaul during the final years 
of the Gallo-Roman period, forbade the development 
of original or characteristic traits among the various 
peoples; the cruel fortunes they suffered together, 
submerged all individualties in a general cataclysm, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 1 7 

and the history of each family must have been con- 
fused with that of all the others, in the total of the 
common misfortunes, so that no one of them could 
be separately sketched. But it is fitting to give a 
rapid glance at some of the atrocities of which cer- 
tain Gallic communities were the scene during this 
epoch. 

Alsace had scarcely begun to recover from the 
ravages of the Bungundian invasion, when the fierce 
hordes of Attila swept down upon it. A part of 
the inhabitants sought refuge in the mountains, tak- 
ing with them the remnants of their former for- 
tunes, and leading the few farm animals they still 
possessed. There, they were further reduced by 
want, while the army of the Huns was advancing 
in the plain, destroying as it went Argentoratum, 
Helvetus, Brisaccia and Argentovaria, only a few 
isolated bands penetrating beyond into the Rau- 
racian lands, now occupied by the Brugundians, who 
had established themselves throughout the region 
of the Jura. 

In this territory, near the spot where Rouffach is 
to-day, was a little town, fortified, as all towns of 
the time were, to whose scanty population had been 
added a small number of fugitives escaped from the 
capture and destruction of the nearest military posts 
on the Rhine. The townspeople did not doubt that 
their ruin was inevitable and near at hand, when 
the enemy destroyed Argentovaria, from which they 
were only four leagues distant ; nevertheless, they 
resolved to defend to the last ditch the remnants of 
their fortifications, which they had not yet had time 
since the last invasion to repair. They sent away 
the old men and the women and children, to whom 



Il8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

some refuge might be open in the Vosges, and pre- 
pared to see the others share a common fate. 

A number of these fugitives were taken by Sex- 
tus Halcovir, a patrician of the town, to a villa 
which he owned in the mountains, where he was 
going to seek refuge for his old mother, his wife 
and his two daughters, girls of about twenty. There 
were besides three sons belonging to this family, 
but they had been left behind to take their part in 
the defense of the town. 

Halcovir's villa had escaped in the preceding in- 
vasions on account of its secluded situation in the 
little valley of Soultzmath, and on account of the 
very conformation of this lovely and fertile Vosges 
valley itself. This fold in the mountains, well 
known in our day for its excellent mineral springs 
and the fine quality of its grapes, has no connection 
with the plain save by a rather narrow gorge, and 
instead of sloping upward to the summits east and 
west of it, as the Vosges valleys generally do, it 
crouches so to put it, at the foot of the mountains 
that girdle it about, making a basin parallel to their 
north and south direction. 

These topographical conditions had hitherto pro- 
tected Halcovir's fine villa, which he ordinarily left 
to the care of his farmers, shepherds and others of 
his dependents. This little group of retainers was 
now reinforced by the company of old men, women 
and children brought along by Halcovir with his 
mother, his wife and his children. 

A party of foraging Huns, who were scouring 
the country about ruined Argentovaria, in search 
of provisions and plunder, made a dash upon the 
defences of the little Rauracian village, with the ex- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II9 

pectation of gaining immediate possession. But they 
met a repulse from its defenders, who protected the 
breeches with their weapons and even their bodies. 

Yet however determined was this defense, it 
could do no more than prolong the agony of the 
little town. The Huns collected in greater num- 
bers, assailed the town anew the next day, forced 
a way in over the dead bodies of the vanquished 
Gauls, massacred all still left alive, plundered the 
place, and reduced it to ashes. 

Two of Halcovir's sons perished in the fight, but 
the third, whom a number of wounds had rendered 
incapable of bearing arms, had retired from the 
walls before the entrance of the Huns, and suc- 
ceeded in escaping and reaching his father's villa, 
where he arrived covered with blood, and hardly 
alive, spreading terror by his appearance. 

Dare they still hope that the gorge leading into 
the valley would escape detection by the enemy's 
scouts — sole chance of safety for the refugees ? The 
hope was of short duration, for two days after the 
arrival of Halcovir's only remaining son, the pickets 
who had been stationed at the points of approach 
from the plain, saw a troop of barbarian marauders 
entering the passage which led to the valley. They 
ran to the villa with the fatal news, and all knew 
that they must now perish. 

But Halcovir was determined to make a last ef- 
fort to save the women and children, and he pre- 
pared to have them led away into the forests of the 
neighboring mountains, to the west of the valley. 
Choosing one of his retainers to direct them, he ad- 
jured the others to resist the Huns with him, so as 
to keep them as long as possible at the villa. The 



120 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

brave fellows thus besought by the master they 
loved, all promised to wage a desperate fight; but 
they demanded as a condition, that not one of them- 
selves, but Halcovir, should guide the little band of 
fugitives, since his age and his strength would ren- 
der him more useful to them than he could be in 
the defense of the villa. Time was pressing, and 
without useless argument Halcovir led the unfortu- 
nate creatures he was trying to save into the nearest 
wood. 

As soon as they had entered the valley, and had 
seen at its extremity the villa with its group of im- 
posing buildings, the Huns broke into cries of as- 
tonishment and delight; but as they did not know 
what opposition they might have to encounter, they 
approached cautiously and with closed ranks. 

The men who had dedicated themselves to the 
project of detaining the Huns as long as possible in 
the vicinity of the villa, had armed themselves and 
hidden in as advantageous positions as they could 
find, following in this the advice of Halcovir's son, 
who leaning painfully upon his sword, that he no 
longer had the strength to wield, desired to die 
with his companions, and in face of the enemy. 

Not perceiving any hostile movement from the di- 
rection of the villa, the Huns at length approached 
it boldy, and made a dash against the great gate 
which gave entrance to it. Here they were held in 
check a moment by a shower of arrows that fell 
upon the foremost of them; but the very feebleness 
of the attack made it perfectly clear that they had 
no serious resistance to fear, and they rushed wildly 
into the villa. 

In groups of two or three, the brave Rauraci re- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 121 

tired from post to post, prolonging as far as they 
could their hopeless struggle ; then one after another 
they succumbed, valiantly righting to their deaths. 

Now the Huns began their pillage. One party of 
them carried all the valuables outside the villa, de- 
stroying everything else as they went along, and 
then ravaged the gardens, breaking to pieces the 
statuary and fountains. Others got together what 
provisions of food the villa contained, upon which 
they meant to live, and casks of wine, from which 
they would soon intoxicate themselves. Still others 
herded together the stock grazing in the meadows, 
preparatory to leading it away. 

These last of the marauders were not long in 
finding traces of the unfortunate little party which 
had escaped with Halcovir, and they at once set out 
in pursuit. They soon overtook the group of wo- 
men and children, who were already spent with 
fatigue and fright. Surrounding them, the Huns 
made them turn back towards the villa, first brutally 
beating their guide, and attaching a cord around his 
neck, by which one of the barbarians led him. 

Seeing from the start that Halcovir's mother and 
two others of the older women could not keep up 
with the rest, the Huns struck them down on the 
spot, leaving them there to await the end of their 
agony. 

When the villa was reached the victims were 
given over to the most horrible ordeals, and their 
butchers began an orgy of drunkenness, torture and 
blood. As their sack of the villa had brought only 
small sums of money to light, the Huns thought 
Halcovir must be concealing greater amounts in 
some secret place, and in their efforts to force him 



122 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

to give this up, they submitted him at intervals to 
the crudest ordeals. They began by breaking his 
teeth; then they tore out one of his eyes; next 
they forced him to stand with live coals under his 
feet; and finally, enraged that they could not even 
draw an outcry from him, they stretched his body 
on the ground, bound it down immovably, and ap- 
plied to his breast and elsewhere the red hot irons 
of pikes and arrows. While those most greedy for 
plunder were thus satisfying their savage instincts 
upon the only living man they had within their 
power, others of the Huns seized the women and 
children. The little ones they strangled or smoth- 
ered, beat out their brains against the rocks, crushed 
their bodies with stones, or threw them into the air 
and caught them on the points of pikes or swords 
as they fell. As for the women, their fate was 
more frightful than that of the children torn from 
their arms. 

When there were left only dead bodies and a few 
dying victims whose tortures a spark of life was 
still cruelly prolonging, the Huns set fire to the 
buildings, gathered up their plunder, and with this 
and the cattle they had been able to herd, set out 
from the deserted valley, leaving behind only the 
slowly dying fires of the ruins of the Gallic villa. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I23 



NINTH VIEW. 

Reign of Clovis. — Kingdom of Austrasia. — Dagobert I. — ■ 
Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Barons. — Mayors of the Palace. 
— Attich, first Duke of Alsace — Sundgau and Nordgau. — 
Condition of Alsace under the Merovingian Kings. — Pippin 
of Heristal. — Charles Martel. — Pippin the Short — Royal 
Residences and Monasteries in Alsace. — Castles of the 
Nobles. — Legend of Saint Odile. 

At the death of Childeric, in 481, his power passed 
into the hands of his son Clovis, then fifteen years 
old, and at the head of a small army of four thou- 
sand warriors, which was occupying the city of 
Tournai and the country about. 

In conjunction with Ragnashar, King of Cam- 
bria, Clovis defeated the Roman General Syagrius 
at Soissons in 486, and had him decapitated. This 
made Clovis master of the country lying between 
the Loire and the Somme. 

In 492, he married a Christian, Clotilda, the niece 
of a Burgundian King. Three years later he fought 
a great battle against the Alemanni, near the Rhine, 
not far from Strasbourg, the ancient Argentoratum 
of the Gauls, which now bore the name of Argentina. 
He was victorious, and drove the Alemanni back 
across the Rhine. It was after this successful battle 
of Tolbiac that Clovis presented himself for baptism 
to the Bishop Saint Remy at Rheims, and thus 
gained the support of all the clergy of Gaul. 



124 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

He now gave Alsace the enjoyment of a long 
peace, during which its cities and villages rose from 
their ruins and saw the rebirth of commerce and 
industry in their midst. All their inhabitants now 
embraced Christianity. 

After defeating the Visigoths, at Vouille, near 
Poitiers, in 507, Clovis attacked Provence, and was 
defeated before Aries, in 508. After having insti- 
gated the murder of the Frankish Kings of Saint 
Omer, Cambrai, the Mans, and Cologne, he died in 
511, leaving to his four sons a kingdom which ex- 
tended from the lower Rhine to the Loire. In the 
partition they made of it, Thierry was given the 
sovereignty of all the northeastern part of ancient 
Gaul, and this country, which included Alsace, took 
the name of Austrasia. 

It would be going quite outside the limits of dis- 
cussion of the facts showing the connection of Al- 
sace with the other parts of Gaul, to rehearse all the 
occurrences, invariably sanguinary and frequently 
barbarous, which contributed under the Meroving- 
ian kings to the completion of the conquests of the 
Franks. We shall therefore point out only those 
directly connected with Alsace, as the part of the 
Frankish domain interesting to us. 

In 628, Dagobert I., succeeding his father, 
Clothar II., came into possession of the whole em- 
pire of the Franks, which then extended from the 
Elbe to the Pyrenees, and from the Western Ocean 
to the frontiers of Hungary and Bohemia. In spite 
of the wisdom and skill with which he governed, 
Dagobert saw two blows given to his power which 
were the prelude to the decadence of the Meroving- 
ians. In outside affairs the Saxons refused him the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 25 

tribute they owed, the Thuringians demanded a 
special governor, and a new state, that of the Vene- 
tians, was formed on the borders of the Danube. 
At home, the high military functionaries raised their 
pretentions to a more and more considerable author- 
ity, thus laying the foundations of the feudal sys- 
tem, which, during the following centuries, was to 
weaken and often neutralize the sovereign power. 

These military offices were those of dukes or 
governors of provinces; marquises, charged with 
defending the frontiers; and counts, ministers of 
affairs in the duchies. 

Originally these positions were confided to chiefs 
chosen by the king, with the right of dismissal ; but 
they soon became hereditary, thus limiting his re- 
sources of action. The royal authority was still 
further trammeled by the creation in the great states 
of Neustria and Austrasia of Mayors of the Palace, 
who from simple king's ministers, raised their own 
power little by little till they dominated their mas- 
ters and finally replaced them. It must, however, 
be remembered that the thing which gave the most 
sinister blow to the power of the Franks was the 
fatal partition of his kingdom among his sons made 
by every monarch who had succeeded in uniting un- 
der his own government all the regions which had 
submitted to the Frankish rule. 

Among the great dignitaries and government of- 
ficials of this epoch, was Ettich or Attich, the first 
Duke of Alsace, elevated to this high position in 670, 
by Childebert II., King of Austrasia, who died by 
assassination, after he had wrested Bourgoyne and 
Neustria from his brother Theodoric, and shut him 
up in a monastery at Saint Denis. 



126 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

At that time Alsace was divided into two regions, 
or Gau : — the Sundgau, to the south, and the Nord- 
gau, to the north. Attich had his residence at Ober- 
nai, at the foot of Mount Altitona, on whose sum- 
mit he built a great castle called Hohenburg. His 
wife, Berswinda, bore him a number of children, 
who were, in the male line, the founders of the fami- 
lies of the Dukes of Lorraine, the Counts of Eguis- 
heim in Alsace, the Counts of Roussillon, Flanders, 
and Paris, the Landgraves of Hapsbourg, Sach- 
ringen and Bade; and in the female line, of the 
Salian emperors of Germany, the families of the 
Hohenstaufen, and the Capets in France. 

In 687, Pippin of Heristal was proclaimed major 
domus of all the Frankish states, and after his death, 
in 714, his son Charles Martel was recognized as 
Duke of Austrasia by the seigniors of that country. 
In 719 he possessed all the powers his father had 
had. He died in 741, after reigning under the title 
of Duke of the Franks. 

During this real sovereignty, to which nothing 
but the title of king was lacking, Charles Martel 
again reduced the Saxons to obedience, as well as 
the Bavarians and the Alemanni, and in 732, near 
Poitiers, he crushed a formidable army of Saracens 
who, under the command of Abd-er-Rahman, had 
traversed the Pyrenees and the whole Midi of 
France. 

In 752, his son Pippin the Short seized the crown 
of the Merovingians, two hundred and seventy-one 
years after the accession of Clovis. 

During this period the customs of the Franks had 
imposed themselves upon the Gallic nation. They 
generally fought on foot, with the sword, the pike 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 12J 

and the two-edged battle ax for weapons, and their 
only pay was a share in the spoils. 

Their king was the head of the army, and the 
first soldier of the nation. His accession was pro- 
claimed by raising him on a shield. He had abso- 
lute power to make peace, war, and alliances; to 
regulate the taxes, and to name the dukes and 
counts, whom he usually chose from among the 
barons, or chief nobles. The nobility formed the 
highest class of the nation, next came the freemen, 
and then the serfs and slaves. 

The administrators and judges in the villages 
were the "heads of a hundred" ; in the larger cen- 
ters of population they were the counts and dukes. 
The soldiers were under the jurisdiction of the mili- 
tary chiefs, and the lesser ecclesiastics under that of 
the bishops. The Franks were governed by the 
Salic laws, the Gauls of the Midi by Roman law, 
the Gauls of the north by codes peculiar to each 
tribe. 

Among these codes, which were greatly varied 
and all barbaric, there were admitted trial by boil- 
ing water, into which the arm must be plunged; by 
burning irons, which must be seized by the hand; 
by cold water, where the innocent floated and the 
guilty sank; and by duel, when the two champions 
fought, the one in favor of the accused, the other 
for his downfall. 

The Latin language, already corrupted by its mix- 
ture with the Gallic during the Gallo-Roman period, 
became more impure under the Merovingian rule, 
and finally settled into the popular idiom known 
under the name of Lingua roniana, from which came 
the French language with its Latin, Greek, Celtic 
and Frankish elements. 



128 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

From the decadence in architecture, there resulted 
a new style that was later called Romance, like the 
language, because it aimed at the imitation of Ro- 
man buildings. 

Science and letters had almost disappeared dur- 
ing this lamentable phase of the history of the 
Gauls, and what remnants of them there were, lay 
altogether in the obscure labors of a few monks, 
devoted toilers, but for the most part ignorant and 
superstitious. Some of them wrote chronicles and 
looked after the preservation of ancient manuscripts, 
while others scraped the parchments that bore 
these precious manuscripts, in order to use them for 
writing out marvelous legends and incredible tales. 

Like the other parts of Gaul, Alsace was subject 
to the conditions we have been mentioning ; but she 
had the advantage of enjoying continual security 
under the Frankish kings, and of their disposition 
to inhabit this beautiful country, either temporarily 
or in more permanent .fashion, as did the son of 
Dagobert II. Thus she recovered a part of her 
earlier prosperity, and saw new cities rising in her 
territory at the same time that the old ones were be- 
ginning to flourish again. Among the latter was 
Basel, then belonging to Alsace ; Brisach, which was 
still on the left bank of the Rhine ; Saverne, fortified 
by the Merovingians ; and Strasbourg or Argentina, 
rebuilt upon the ruins of Argentoratum, where 
Clovis, they say, erected during the years from 504 
to 510, the first Christian church, on the site of the 
ancient temple of Hercules, where to-day the city's 
fine cathedral stands. 

Without these fortified towns the Alsatian plain 
was covered with numbers of chateaux and farms, 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 29 

the former belonging to the royal domains, and the 
latter to rich seigniors. 

The chief royal residences and dependances were 
Sirens, Illzach, Isenbourg (Isenheim), Rouffach, 
Columbaria (Colmar), Selotistat (Schlestadt), 
Horinstein (Erstein), Marien, Kirchheim, Koenigs- 
hoven, Sueshausen, and Saloissa (Seltz). 

Numerous convents and monasteries were also 
built in Alsace. The oldest is that of Marmontier, 
a league distant from Saverne, which was erected 
in 590. Then came, in chronological order, the fol- 
lowing: Munster, founded in 660, in the valley of 
Saint Gregory (Valley of Munster) ; Hohenburg, 
erected by Attich for his daughter Saint Odile at 
the close of the seventh century; Ebersheim, also 
founded by Attich ; Wissembourg, Blidenveld, Saar- 
bourg, Haslach, Saint Thomas (of Strasbourg), 
and Saint Sigismond (of Rouffach), all built at the 
same epoch by Dagobert II, or under his protection ; 
Niedermunster, built by Sainte Odile in 700; Saint 
Etienne (of Strasbourg), erected by Adelbert, the 
son of Attich; Massevaux and Murbach, founded 
in 724 by Mason and Evrard, sons of Adelbert; 
Neuviller, built between 722 and 744 by Sigvald, 
Bishop of Metz; Leberau, in the valley of Liepvre, 
and Saint Hippolyte, that Fulrade had erected in 
722; Haschow (Eschau), founded in 778 by Remi, 
Bishop of Strasbourg; Erstein, built by Hermen- 
garde, wife of Lothaire I. ; Saint Eleon, built at 
Audlan by Richarde, wife of Charles the Fat. 

The number of these convents increased remark- 
ably in the course of the following centuries. 

It was the same with the castles or Burgs, which 
arose one after another on the summits of the 



I3O ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Vosges, in imitation of that of Hohenburg, that the 
Duke Attich had built on Mount Altitona, above 
his princely residence at Obernai. 

The important role which history assigns to At- 
tich, his family and his posterity, makes it neces- 
sary to find place here for the interesting legend of 
his daughter, Sainte Odile. 

It was in 662 that Bereswind first presented her 
husband, Attich, with a child. He wished for a 
son, and was greatly disturbed by the announce- 
ment of the birth of a daughter, which his wife's 
old nurse had come to make to him. He was at 
table, surrounded by friends and the officers of his 
household, whose remarks were not intended to 
lessen his sensitiveness and disappointment. Under 
the stress of his feelings, he refused to go to look 
at his daughter, and ordered that she be kept en- 
tirely in the hands of the women. Then he broke 
out in a fury when he learned that the daughter 
just born to him was blind ; for he looked upon the 
birth of the imperfect child as a disgrace. "Let 
her be killed," he cried, "and let the matter never 
afterward be mentioned in my family !" 

To save the life of her daughter, Bereswind had 
her taken away that very night by the old nurse, 
who confided her to the care of a relative living in 
one of the villages of the plain. But this hiding 
place not seeming to the unhappy mother a safe 
enough one, she sent a message to a friend of hers, 
the superior of a convent at Palma (Baume-les- 
Dames), in Franche-Comte, asking if she would 
not give protection to the feeble and innocent vic- 
tim of paternal pride. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I3I 

The child was received at the convent and 
brought up there, where she made herself more and 
more beloved as she grew older, because of her love- 
liness of character and her piety. When she had 
passed her girlhood she was baptized by Saint Ehr- 
hardt, Bishop of Bavaria, received the name of 
Odile, and beginning from this moment was gradu- 
ally healed of her blindness. 

Odile knew about her family, and that she had 
been completely forgotten by her father, who sup- 
posed her to have been killed by his orders, on the 
very day of her birth. She hesitated to take her 
vows, for she cherished a hope of some day return- 
ing to her parents, and taking her place beside the 
brothers who had been born after her. She resolved 
to inform one of these brothers, Hugues, of her ex- 
istence, and of the situation in which she found 
herself, and she sent him, hidden in a ball of silk, 
a letter telling him of these things. 

One day as the young man was mounting the 
road from Obernai to Hohenbourg on horseback, 
an old woman stepped out of the brushwood bor- 
dering the path, and came toward him, saying: 
"Seignior, take this ball of silk, and remember it is 
by breaking the shell that one finds the kernel." 
Hugues took what she offered him, and continued 
on his way, while the old woman disappeared. 

As soon as he had removed the mysterious cover- 
ing and read the message it contained, the brother 
of Odile felt a warm affection for this unknown 
sister spring up in his heart, and on the mor- 
row he told his father of the young girl's existence, 
and of the miracle God had wrought for her in giv- 
ing her back her sight. 



I32 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Hugues was greatly grieved by the coldness with 
which his confidence was received. The only result 
of it was a command never again to speak to his 
father of a daughter looked upon as dead from the 
moment of her birth. 

In spite of his first failure, Hugues hoped to over- 
come the obstinacy of Attich. He sent a messenger 
to his sister, with an escort of cavaliers sumptuously 
arrayed, charged with delivering her a letter in 
which he invited her to come to Hohenburg, dressed 
with all the richness appropriate to her rank, and 
surrounded by the warriors, who would heighten 
the effect of her arrival at the ducal domain. 

Odile followed out the wishes of her brother, and 
a few days after her departure from Palma, a bril- 
liant procession was seen advancing along the route 
to Hohenburg. Surrounded by a retinue of women 
and adorned with the richest of garments, the young 
Saint sat in a chariot drawn by ten white oxen, 
while the warriors, mounted and in shining armor, 
rode in ranks on either side. 

Attich, who was hunting with his son on the 
mountain, caught sight of these travelers, whose 
sumptuous array was such as only notables of the 
highest rank might display. 

"What woman," he asked Hugues, "can be com- 
ing in such state to Hohenburg?" 

"The daughter of the Duke of Alsace," replied 
the young man, "is the only one who has the right 
to travel in Alsace with so much pomp. That is 
my sister, coming to claim her place among the 
members of her family and in her father's heart." 

"And is it you," demanded Attich, "who have, 
dared invite her to take this outrageous step?" 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. ISI 

Midi, by the ultra-Royalist tendencies of the "cham- 
bre introuvable ," by the billion francs given to the 
Emigres, the execution of the four young sergeants 
of La Rochelle, the Ultramontane party's abuse of 
its supreme influence, and the detestable proceed- 
ings against the officers of the old army. 

Public opinion was beginning to revolt against 
the deplorable reaction, and was producing here and 
there attempts at resistance, two of which had their 
scene of action in the Department of Haut-Rhin. 

At various points in France, a great conspiracy 
was being organized to overturn the government 
imposed by the hostile armies. The confederates 
of Belfort were to take the initiative in the move- 
ment, at the beginning of the year 1822, and de- 
voted patriots from all sides hastened to that city. 
From Paris came General LaFayette and his son, 
Colonel Pailhes, Bazard, and many others; while 
from New Brisach came Armand Carrel and Jou- 
bert. But the denunciation of a panic-stricken petty 
officer, caused the project to fail, and some of the 
conspirators were obliged to turn back or take to 
flight, while others were arrested at Belfort or even 
in Switzerland, in defiance of the rights of that 
country's neutrality. 

Forty-four of the accused, in the midst of evi- 
dences of the liveliest popular sympathy, were shut 
up in the prison at Colmar, and remained there un- 
der durance during the nine months of preliminary 
proceedings before their appearance at the bar of 
the court of assises of Haut-Rhin. 

In spite of the efforts of the royal magistracy, the 
Alsatian juries acquitted forty of the accused, and 
condemned the other four — Pailhes, Guinard, Due- 



1 82 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

laud, and Tellier — to only five years in prison, a 
fine of five thousand francs, and two years of sur- 
veillance. These men alone were deprived of the 
warm ovation which the citizens of Colmar gave to 
their fellow-accused upon their coming out of prison. 

During the same year, 1822, and during the in- 
carceration of the conspirators of Belfort, the capi- 
tal of Haut-Rhin was the theatre of one of the most 
abominable events which happened during the 
reign of Louis XVIII. It may well be recalled 
here as a characteristic episode of that epoch. 

Among the numerous officers either superannu- 
ated or on half pay, who inhabitated Colmar, was a 
brave Colonel of Dragoons named Caron. He lived 
very quietly with his wife and a son of twelve, and 
among the few friends he cultivated was an old 
military man named Roger, now free from all con- 
nection with military affairs. 

Already known to hold opinions antagonistic to . 
the Bourbons, these men had the imprudence to air 
them in the presence of a number of under officers 
of a regiment of light horse, on garrison duty at 
Colmar. These under officers whose names were 
Thiers, Gerard, Magnien and Delzaine, reported the 
matter to their superiors, and were told to pretend 
to lend their support to all Caron's propositions. 

Thus encouraged by these agents of provocation, 
Caron and Roger conceived a plan for the insurrec- 
tion of the garrisons at Colmar and New Brisach, 
and the deliverance of the Belfort conspirators. 

To draw them on toward the execution of this 
project, the under officers assured them that the 
squadrons under their own command were at their 
disposal, and even went so far as to put money into 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 83 

their hands for defraying the initial expenses. 
Finally they arrived at setting the day for taking 
up arms. 

The second of July, at the earliest appointed mo- 
ment, Caron and Roger made their way to the spot 
in the country where they were to be joined by a 
squadron from Colmar and another from Brisach. 
When the meeting had taken place, Caron arrayed 
himself in the full dress costume of a colonel of 
dragoons, and threw his civil costume among the 
vines nearby. These garments were at once found 
and taken to the Prefect by Quartermaster Mag- 
nien. 

Then Colonel Caron made a speech to the three 
hundred light cavalry who had joined him, and who 
were under orders to obey implicitly their under 
officers, although they might see some of their su- 
perior officers in the ranks, dressed as privates. 

Caron's speech was answered with the cry, "Long 
live the Emperor!" and the column set out in the 
direction of Ensisheim, passing through several 
populous villages, whose inhabitants fortunately 
were not incited by the incessant repetition of this 
cry. 

Upon arriving at Battenheim, the soldiers refused 
to go on to Ensisheim, and shortly afterward threw 
themselves upon Caron and Roger, seized their 
papers and their arms, and hoisted them, bound 
hand and foot, into a cart, to take them back to 
Colmar under guard of one of the squadrons, the 
other having returned to New Brisach. 

You may judge of the grievous astonishment of 
the citizens of Colmar, when they saw passing 
through their streets, this ignoble vehicle, guarded 



184 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

before, behind, and on both sides by the light horse. 
On the one seat of the cart requisitioned at Batten- 
heim, was Colonel Caron, bound with cords. His 
uniform was covered with dust, and his fine head 
with its circle of white hair about his bare crown, 
and stript of its helmet, which had been thrown at 
the prisoner's feet, was exposed to the burning mid- 
day sun. Behind the rude seat lay Roger in bour- 
geois dress, stretched out on a thin bed of straw. 

After the incarceration of these two victims of 
such odious treason, numbers of cavalry patrols cir- 
culated in the streets until night- fall. The object 
of this ridiculous farce was to permit the authori- 
ties to state in their report to the Government, that 
they had had to take . the measures necessary tor 
preserving public tranquility. 

Roger being a civilian, and it being impossible to 
separate him and Caron in the affair, both should 
have appeared before the Court of Assizes, for all 
military tribunals were incompetent in Roger's case. 
However, by order of the Government, they were 
both dragged before a council of war at Stras- 
bourg, which condemned Caron to death and Roger 
to the galleys. Their appeal for reversal of judg- 
ment remained in the portfolios of Minister Pay- 
ronnet, and Caron was not even permitted to see 
his wife and child. He was shot behind the bar- 
racks of La Finckmatt in Strasbourg, and Roger 
was for many years subjected to cruel suffering, 
both moral and physical, in the galleys of Toulon. 

The four under officers, the chief visible actors 
in this atrocious drama, were named sub-lieuten- 
ants, and moreover Gerard and Thiers were deco- 
rated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. These 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 185 

promotions were made at a review on the Champ 
de Mars of Colmar, in the presence of her unsym- 
pathetic citizens. 

Kind people of Mulhouse provided for Caron's 
son. Upon his return from the galleys, Roger, hos- 
pitably received at Colmar, established there a rid- 
ing school for civilians, which gained him an honor- 
able living. After July, 1830, he was appointed 
lieutenant of gendarmery in Algeria. 



l86 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



THIRTEENTH VIEW. 

Revolution of 1830 and reign of Louis Philippe. — Revolu- 
tion of 1848. — Patriotic celebration of the second centen- 
nary of the return of Alsace to France. — Coup d'Etat and 
the Second Empire. — Plebiscite. — War with Germany. 

France was growing more and more weary of 
the reactionary and clerical regime of the govern- 
ment of the Bourbons, and there began to take form, 
under the title of Liberal opinion, a general oppo- 
sition, into which all the former adherents of the 
Empire and all minds eager for progress and lib- 
erty entered. 

From all sides the voice of the people arose, re- 
calling the rights acquired by the Revolution of 
1789, the glories of the Empire, and the origin and 
faults of the Restoration; and demanding absolute 
respect for the constitutional charter. 

Also at each new election of members of the 
Chamber, the number of Liberal deputies became 
more considerable. 

In spite of all this, after a journey to Alsace made 
by Charles X. in 1828, when he was led to receive 
as a proof of popular devotion the official acclaima- 
tions with which he was everywhere received, this 
old King did not hesitate to give the command of a 
French army to Bourmont, the great traitor of Wat- 
erloo; to put the army of Paris under the orders 
of Marmont, who was guilty of having left the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 87 

allies open passage to the capital at the time of the 
invasion; and to violate the charter by his famous 
ordinances of July, 1830. 

It was too much! The address to the King, 
voted by two hundred and twenty-one Liberal depu- 
ties of the Chamber, provoked the uprising of the 
people of Paris, and after three days of righting, 
the Bourbons were once more driven from France. 

The Revolution of 1830 was acclaimed with en- 
thusiasm by the very great majority of the French, 
and was so ardently welcomed in Alsace that even 
before the success of the Paris combatants was def- 
initely known, the inhabitants of many Alsatian 
cities had taken patriotic measures to sustain them. 
There were immediately formed corps of volun- 
teers, which were soon replaced by the organization 
of the National Guard. 

By September, Alsace had more than fifty thous- 
and of the National Guard enrolled, armed and 
equipped by the state, and uniformed at their own 
expense. This large number of Alsatian militia in- 
cluded squadrons or companies of cavalry in various 
localities, and in all fortified places, such as Mul- 
house and Colmar, batteries of artillery, and every- 
where corps of sappers organized in battalions, 
companies or sections, according to the importance 
of their stations. 

As the majority of these men had served as sol- 
diers and most of their leaders were formerly army 
officers, the Alsatian National Guard was soon very 
well disciplined and capable of rendering military 
service of real importance. 

These good results were produced in part by the 
patriotic exaltation aroused in the country by the 



1 88 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

menaces of the Czar Nicholas, which he was hin- 
dered from putting into execution by the insurrec- 
tion of the Poles, who once more poured out their 
blood in combat with the enemies of France. 

The seventh of August, 1830, the deputies ex- 
ceeding somewhat the instructions put upon them 
by their constituents, had proclaimed Louis Philippe 
King of the French, not because he was a Bourbon, 
but although he was a Bourbon. They believed 
with the aged LaFayette, that his reign would be 
the best of republics. 

The coming to the throne of Louis Philippe was 
hailed with satisfaction by a very large majority of 
the nation, and it was by a series of enthusiastic 
ovations that this popular sovereign was received, 
when he journeyed through Alsace in 1831, with 
his two sons, the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours. 

Men saw in him the recognized friend of all the 
chiefs of the great Liberal party; the old-time Re- 
publican General of Valmy and Jemmapes ; the Citi- 
zen King, who brought up his sons in the public 
schools, and who might be seen in the streets in the 
frock coat of the bourgeois, wearing a grey hat 
and carrying an umbrella under his arm. He was 
to them the representative of a government sub- 
ject to a charter imposed, not granted; a govern- 
ment of liberty and progress. And such he really 
was during the first two years of his reign; but 
then he began to turn away from the path of po- 
litical amelioration, and to confine himself more and 
more closely to the limits of the rights of royalty. 
He responded less and less readily to the generous 
impulses of the country, and for the purpose of 
stemming their tide, he first employed the ministries 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 189 

of Dupont de l'Eure, Laffitte and Casimir Perier, 
and then, for the fifteen following years, cast into 
the scales of his governmental balance, the minis- 
ters Thiers, Mole, de Broglie and Guizot. 

Together with Guizot, he resolved to put down 
a desire widespread among the people — the desire 
to give equal rights with the assessed electors, to a 
class of men made eligible by the title of licentiate 
of some one of the divers faculties, or that of re- 
tired officer. 

The barrier he thus tried to raise as an obstacle 
to the movement of minds was too weak. It was 
broken down in 1848, and the rupture carried away 
the ruins of the throne, which fell under the shock 
of a few hours of firing. 

Louis Philippe had not even reached England, 
whither he fled, before the Second Republic was 
rising from earth in France. Its arrival did not 
produce as general enthusiasm as that which had 
broken forth in 1830, yet it came with the approval 
of a national majority, and with at least the appar- 
ent consent of all French citizens. 

The Republic of 1848 ran the same course in Al- 
sace as in the other parts of France. The National 
Guards, successively disbanded under the govern- 
ment of Louis Philippe, or fallen into neglect from 
the evil effects of the law which regulated them, 
were rapidly and successfully reorganized, but un- 
fortunately there were also formed a regrettable 
number of clubs and general societies, rather harm- 
ful through their exaggerations than helpful to gen- 
uine progress. 

In spite of these discords between the true pa- 
triots and a certain class of over-excited men, it was 



190 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

with great enthusiasm and a perfect spirit of accord, 
that in 1848 all Alsace celebrated the second centen- 
ary of its return to France. 

Brilliant fetes, their splendor heightened by mili- 
tary display, were given successively, with intervals 
of two days, at Belfort, Mulhouse, Colmar, and 
Strasbourg, and at each city there was a reunion of 
a number of detachments of the National Guards of 
the two departments, which manoeuvered with the 
troops of the various garrisons on the parade 
grounds, and afterward fraternized with them in 
collations served publicly in the midst of an ex- 
tremely patriotic people. 

In spite of their essentially democratic nature, the 
Alsatian people could not keep out of entanglements 
with the Bonapartist intrigues, so skilfully managed 
by the Duke de Morny, with the aid of a great num- 
ber of agents and emissaries scattered throughout 
France. The common people were made to believe 
in a future of reforms, directed especially to their 
social betterment. Men of prudence and modera- 
tion, were at the same time presented with the im- 
age of the spectre rouge, ready to destroy the fam- 
ily, property, and the whole social order. To those 
of still another type was promised private tranquil- 
ity and peace in the State. The glory and power 
of the first Empire were made to glitter before 
everybody's eyes. Thus Louis Napolean was elected 
President of the Republic. 

The efforts made to arrive at this result had, how- 
ever, obtained only indifferent success in Alsace, 
when some months before the Coup d' Etat of the 
second of December, 185 1, the Prince-President as 
the men of the Bonapartist party affected to call 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I9I 

him, traveled through the two departments of the 
Rhine. 

The journey became for him a series of unpleas- 
ant surprises and disappointments. He was every- 
where badly received by the inhabitants of towns 
and cities where he stopped, hearing only cries of 
"Vive la Republique!" So that from Besancon to 
Strasbourg, he always anticipated the hour set for 
his departure, and consequently that of his arrival 
in the next town. 

Only a little while afterward, fell the Coup 
d' Etat by which Louis Napolean laid a heavy hand 
on the Republic that had recalled him from exile 
and raised him to the rank of its representatives, 
who in turn had confied to him the office of chief 
magistrate, — the Republic to which as deputy and 
President he had sworn fidelity and devotion! 

On the second of December, 185 1, the principal 
republican deputies were arrested, the others were 
driven out, and the few gatherings that offered a 
feeble resistance in Paris, were scattered with can- 
non balls. 

In the Departments, all such attempted assemblies 
were violently crushed, and everywhere citizens 
known to hold republican views were threatened 
and spied upon. Many were detained in depart- 
ments distant from those in which they lived, and 
from Paris as well as from the provinces, consider- 
able numbers were deported to Africa. 

Led astray by the Legend of the First Empire, 
deceived by false and illusory promises, and in- 
fluenced by powerful means of intimidation, the 
electors amnestied by a plebiscite the violent usurpa- 
tion of the second of December. 



192 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

The twenty years which followed under the Im- 
perial Regime which was to have been one of peace, 
were disturbed by a series of wars — in China, the 
Crimea, Italy, Mexico, and finally, alas ! — in France ! 

The authoritative and personal power of the Im- 
perial Government had lost prestige among the en- 
lightened classes of the nation, and with the aim to 
prevent its own decadence, it seized upon a pretext 
for asking of the country and obtaining from it a 
new plebiscite, which was put forth the eighth of 
May, 1870. 

But this electoral victory was not enough to en- 
able the Emperor to wipe out of his history the de- 
plorable pages of the Mexican war, and he needed 
another and farther resounding victory to assure 
the fate of his dynasty. "Its power, would assuredly 
have been consolidated, had the country been given 
the glory of vanquishing Prussia, which since 
Sadowa had dominated in Germany, and aspired 
to the re-establishment of the great German Em- 
pire. 

Although it was evident that in case of war with 
France the various German states would at once rally 
around Prussia, and in spite of our denuded arsen- 
als and the condition of our army, exhausted and 
impoverished as it was by the Mexican expedition, 
the Imperial Government resolved to try the for- 
tunes of the fatherland in a war which the Empress 
said was her war, because in it she saw at once the 
assurance of her son's future, and the humiliation 
of a Protestant nation that was on the verge of be- 
coming predominant in Europe. 

Emboldened and haughty after the success of her 
arms in Denmark and Austria, and confident in the 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I93 

formidable armament she had for a long time been 
preparing, Prussia, on her side, desired a war with 
France. 

With this reciprocal disposition in the French and 
Prussian Governments, a diplomatic difficulty arose 
between them, upon the subject of a Hohenzollern 
prince who was to mount the Spanish throne. 
Napolean III. demanded that he renounce it, and 
that the King of Prussia give surety of his doing so. 
William I. agreed to the renunciation, but refused 
to assure it. This was enough, and the declaration 
of war was read in the French Chamber of Dep- 
uties, on the twentieth of July, 1870. 



194 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 



FOURTEENTH VIEW. 

Conditions in Alsace before the war of 1870. — Events 
which took place there during the war. — The cession of 
Alsace-Lorraine and its effects. — Patriotism of the inhab- 
itants. 

During the passage of the nineteenth century, Al- 
sace rose to a remarkable degree of prosperity and 
progress of every nature. From three hundred 
thousand souls which she numbered at the time of 
her return to France in 1648, in 1870 her popula- 
tion had risen to the number of a million active and 
intelligent citizens, worthy to enjoy the gifts ac- 
corded by Nature to this beautiful, rich and fruit- 
ful country. 

Measured in a straight line from north to south 
between its two extreme points, the country has a 
length of nearly one hundred and twenty-five miles ; 
and measured from east to west in the same way, 
its mean breadth is over thirty miles. It has an area 
of about three thousand miles, nearly seventeen 
hundred in cultivated lands and meadows, a thou- 
sand in forests, over a hundred in vineyards, and 
nearly two hundred in uncultivated land, moun- 
tains, lakes and ponds. 

It is furrowed with highways, canals and various 
other lines of communication, of which the most 
important are the railroads from Belfort and Basel 
to Mulhouse, Colmar, Strasbourg, and Saverne, and 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I95 

the canal leading from the Rhone into the Rhine, 
and ending at Strasbourg. 

The vast plain, stretched out like a well-leveled 
garden between the Rhine and the Vosges, and 
from the Swiss frontier to that of the Palatinate, 
with its great and beautiful forests, fertile meadows, 
and numerous water-courses, is rich in all the culti- 
vated products fostered by the favorable climate of 
France, with the exception of the oranges and olives 
of the Midi. Numerous cities and villages are dis- 
tributed throughout the region, seldom more than 
two and a half or three miles apart. 

Over the whole extent of the eastern slope of the 
chain of the Vosges, its foothills are covered with 
luxuriant vineyards, its flanks wooded with oak and 
chestnut trees, and its summits heavy with dark and 
imposing groves of pine, with the ruins of numerous 
feudal castles beetling above them, and a few peaks 
towering still higher — vast Alpine pasture-lands, 
the highest of which attain an altitude of forty-six 
hundred feet. 

In this beautiful mountain chain are found at 
once great fertile valleys, charming dales, lakes, 
torrents and cascades, huge rocks, and precipices 
with grantie walls three hundred feet high; so that 
one may see but short distances apart scenes the 
most smiling and aspects the wildest — the greatest 
variations of a resourceful Nature, sometimes 
tender and kindly, sometimes awe-inspiring, harsh, 
threatening, and seeming as though still agitated by 
the cataclysms she suffered in pre-historic times. 

The vigorous Alsatian race was able to add to the 
natural gifts of its beautiful and fruitful country, 
all the advantages of civilization. The system of 



I96 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

public instruction was highly developed in both the 
departments of the Rhine. The Academie of Stras- 
bourg had acquired a just renown from the high 
class of instruction given under its various faculties, 
and the city possessed besides a military School of 
Medicine, and a lycee. Colmar had a lycee and Mul- 
house a college and a very remarkable industrial 
school. There were a number of other colleges 
in Alsace, at Haguenau, Wissembourg, Saverne, 
Obernai, Schlestadt, Rouffach, Thann, Altkirk, and 
Belfort. 

A large number of the young graduates of these 
institutions went on with higher studies in science, 
belles-letters, medicine and law, or took honorable 
places in the polytechnical and normal schools and 
the schools of forestry, at Saint-Cyr, and the school 
des Arts et Metiers at Chalons. Elementary in- 
struction was so general that the smallest villages 
had at least one school, and during the later years 
all the conscripts knew how to read and write. 

Just as the two Alsatian departments stood in 
the first rank where popular education was con- 
cerned, that of Bas-Rhin stood second and that of 
Haut-Rhin third in order among the departments 
in which agriculture was carried to the highest per- 
fection. In each of the two capitals there was a de- 
partmental Agricultural society, whose influence 
spread to the smaller societies established in the 
different arrondissements, and to numerous can- 
tonal and communal societies. One was moved to ad- 
miration by the tireless energy of the vine-growers 
and agriculturists of the country, who gathered 
within the space of a few days the abundant pro- 
ducts of their immense vineyards, or harvested, with 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 197 

the same ardor in their work, the crops which cov- 
ered their vast fields or the hay from their countless 
grassy plains. 

In the fields, in the meadows, in the vineyards, 
work was vigorously carried on the year round, but 
with especial energy at harvest time, and no one 
knew that he was tired or thought of rest till his 
task was done. 

The division of the land among a multiplicity of 
proprietors, contributed greatly to these results. 
Even the small number of great landed proprietors 
personally administered their estates, and few lands 
were farmed out. The Alsatian land, like its inhab- 
itants, was essentially democratic. 

The workingmen of the cities made the establish- 
ments in which they were employed prosperous by 
their skill and activity, and thus played a large part 
in the development of the numerous extensive 
manufactories which so greatly augmented the 
country's wealth. 

In acknowledgment of the skill and faithfulness 
of their workmen, the Alsatian manufacturers have 
always shown a friendly solicitude for them by 
creating pension and insurance funds, building 
schools for their children, and establishing work- 
ingmens' towns, of which the one at Mulhouse was 
the first in France, and has remained the most near- 
ly perfect model for all that have aimed to imitate it, 
and the most beautiful and wisest of philanthropic 
works, giving to toilers the means of easily better- 
ing their condition and assuring their future while 
preserving entire independence. 

It must also be said to the honor of the pro- 
prietors of the great Alsatian industries, that in 



I98 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

times of dullness or crisis they have made very con- 
siderable sacrifices in order to keep their workmen 
busy the greatest number of hours possible, and thus 
assure them sufficient income for their needs. It 
should also be added that in this country, so large- 
ly industrial, where the great manufactories count 
their workers by the thousands, there have never 
been any strikes, and not more than two or three 
instances of labor agitations, and those quite in- 
offensive, restricted to a few individuals and a few 
hours, with no resemblance to that hideous evil 
which ruins workingmen and employers alike, and 
gravely threatens the prosperity of the nation itself. 

As in all countries where great industries are 
highly developed and there is a considerable density 
of population, trade was very flourishing in Alsace. 

The Alsatian people were always most sympa- 
thetically inclined toward everything that concerned 
the army, and the officers and soldiers stationed in 
the garrison towns of the country, left them with 
regret, and never forgot the hospitable and friend- 
ly entertainment they had received. From men's 
earliest remembrance, young Alsatians had con-, 
tinually shown a pronounced inclination for mili- 
tary life. The days of conscription were always 
festival days, and a large number of those who es- 
caped being drafted, voluntarily entered the service. 
There were also so many ready to re-engage, that 
they furnished a considerable contingent of the 
corps of under-officers. 

As to superior officers, Alsatians were numerous 
throughout the army, and from their ranks have 
come a great number of men famous for the ser- 
vices they rendered the country, the most celebrated 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I99 

of whom have left to posterity the glorious names 
of Kellermann, Kleber, Rapp, Lefebvre, Pelissier 
and Braut. 

Under the influence of the military spirit abroad 
in Alsace, a large number of gymnasiums and 
shooting-galleries were established throughout the 
country. 

In the cities and towns of the second and third 
rank, the bourgeoise, made up almost entirely of 
land-holders and merchants, were characterized by 
a quiet, regular and domestic life. In the more im- 
portant places, this bourgeoisie, more numerous, 
more active, richer, and having among its number 
more artisans, merchants, landed proprietors and 
people of independent fortune, was still further 
augmented by various classes of state functionaries 
and communal and departmental bureaucrats. This 
aggregation of men whose professions demand a 
superior degree of education, produced a class char- 
acterized by a taste for social assemblies, the theatre, 
music, and scientific, art, and literary societies, 
which did not, however, encroach upon the healthy 
and inspiring life of the family. Very few Al- 
satian towns were without musicial societies, either 
choral or orchestral, and in the more important 
towns there were always several of them. 

At Strasbourg, the civilizing spirit found a 
powerful stimulant in the post-graduate instruction 
given under the various faculties of its famous 
Academie; in the treasures of its fine library and its 
museums of art and natural history; and in the re- 
sources of its admirable theatre. 

At Mulhouse the elements of social progress were 
to be found especially in the good influence of its 



200 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

Industrial Society, whose learned chemists, phys- 
icists, mechanicians and naturalists produced so 
many works of importance, that after the Institute 
it became the chief scientific society of France. 

Colmar, less populous than the two large cities 
just mentioned, perhaps accepted the more readily 
and effectively among its inhabitants generally the 
favorable intellectual effects of the presence of its 
Court of Appeals and its two courts of justice, with, 
their magistrates, lawyers and clerks and the large 
number of functionaries connected with the various 
departmental administrations concentrated in this 
capital city of Haut-Rhin. It possessed besides an 
immense and very important library, as well as a 
splendid museum of art, natural history and eth- 
nography. As at Strasbourg and Mulhouse, science, 
art and letters were here assiduously cultivated. 

Alsace also set an example of great tolerance in 
religious matters. The Catholics made up about 
three-fifths of the population, and lived in perfect 
peace with the Protestants, who with a very small 
number of Jews, made up the other two-fifths. The 
free-thinkers were scattered among the faithful fol- 
lowers of these three cults, whose harmony there 
was never any attempt to disturb, save in a few rare 
cases, by individuals who were as unsupported as 
they were uninfluential, and who were always un- 
successful. A fact taken at random may serve to 
illustrate this harmony. In the rich commune of 
Horburg, near Colmar, a little old church served 
alternately, according to need, for the services of 
Protestants or Catholics. 

The preceding sketch gives but a faint conception 
of what Alsace was at the moment when the fatal 
war of 1870 broke out. 







ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 201 



During the course of July, the Alsatian Gardes 
Mobiles were called out, and occupied the fortified 
towns of the country, while the numerous military 
convoys transported in the direction of the Pala- 
tinate frontier a part of the two hundred fifty thou- 
sand men which France was reduced to opposing to 
a million Germans. 

The fourth of August, a corps of eight thousand 
French stationed near Wissembourg, under com- 
mand of General Abel Douai, was surprised and at- 
tacked by eighty thousand Prussians and Bavarians, 
and after a heroic fight, was forced to retire to 
Haguenau. Then came the defeats of Mac-Mahon 
and General Frossard, which produced a profound 
depression in Alsace, where there were no longer 
any regular troops, and where the fortified towns 
themselves wree guarded only by the remnants of 
different regiments, by some of the Gardes Mobiles 
who had been mustered in haste, and were badly 
armed, badly equipped, and poorly clothed, and by 
the citizens that a decree of the tenth of August had 
just called into the ranks of the Stationary National 
Guard. 

After the defeat of Marshal Mac-Mahon, the 
Germans spread out over the department of Bas- 
Rhin, and invested Strasbourg. 

While this siege was going on, Napolean III. 
capitulated at Sedan, delivered the French army in- 
to the hands of the enemy to whom he had sur- 
rendered, and on the fourth of September, the Third 
Republic was proclaimed at Paris. 

It was not until the 12th of September that the 
Germans entered Haut-Rhin where from the be- 
ginning of the month the Alsatians had been organ- 



202 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

izing on paper the National Guard, for which they 
had been able to furnish only a few percussion guns, 
but no equipment or rations. Nevertheless, when 
on the 13th of September at eight o'clock in the 
morning six thousand Badenese troops approached 
Colmar, with five pieces of artillery, the volunteer 
company of Saint Denis, which had been stationed 
there for three days, faced the enemy, with the sup- 
port of about one hundred and fifty of the National 
Guard, whose patriotism drew them individually in- 
to this honorable but futile attempt to defend an 
unprotected city. These brave fellows drove the 
enemy's advance guard back beyond Horbourg, 
but were then forced to beat a retreat, after killing 
a number of the enemy, and losing one of the volun- 
teers and a bourgeois citizen of Colmar. 

To retaliate for this slight resistance, the Baden- 
ese attempted to blow up the gas works which were 
situated in the neighborhood of the spot where it 
happened. With this intent, they stormed the es- 
tablishment for half an hour, striking it with thirty- 
seven shells, and causing great damage. After this 
fine exploit, they entered the capital of Haut-Rhin, 
in closed ranks, where they killed three inoffensive 
men in the streets. 

They retired from Colmar the fifteenth of Sep- 
tember, and then there were seen passing through 
that city troops of francs-tireurs, sometimes Prus- 
sian uhlans, and once a body of fifteen hundred of 
the gardes mobile, on the way from Lyons to 
Brisach. 

Strasbourg, overwhelmed by the powerful Ger- 
man artillery, was forced to surrender, the 
twenty-eighth of September, immediately after- 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 203 

ward Schlestadt and Brisach were invested, and 
Mulhouse was occupied by over ten thousand of 
the enemy's troops. 

During the first half of October the whole coun- 
try was submitted to incessant requisitions and 
abuses of all sorts, and to frequent arrests of its 
citizens. A large number of the younger men es- 
caping through the enemy's lines and their outposts 
— which were everywhere, — crossed the Vosges and 
rejoined various corps of the French army. 

After a valiant defense, Schlestadt was forced to 
surrender, on the twenty-fourth of October, and 
Brisach on the tenth of November. The Alsatian 
gardes mobiles were left at the mercy of the brutal 
German troops, who led them prisoners into their 
own country, where they suffered the greatest pri- 
vations. Belfort alone was able to continue her 
glorious defense! 

It was with ever increasing despair that the Al- 
satian people learned successively of the treason of 
Bazaine and the surrender of Metz, the defeat of 
the armies of Bourbaki, Chanzy and Faidherbe, the 
capitulation of Paris and the frightful civil warfare 
that followed. 

But it remained for them to receive a last blow 
more cruel still, which at the same time fell upon 
their brothers of Lorraine — their deliverance into 
the hands of Germany as a ransom for France! 

As a token of their gratitude toward all those 
who had taken part in the national defense, the Al- 
satians chose to look upon it as being personified 
in the man who had been its most active and most 
effective motive power; when therefore they were 
called upon to elect their deputies to the Assembly 



204 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

of Bordeaux, they placed Gambetta at the head of 
their lists, in both departments of the Rhine. 

Before the ratification of the treaty of peace with 
the German Empire, by the Assembly of Bordeaux, 
the deputies from Alsace-Lorraine addressed a pro- 
test to it, containing the following passage: "By 
these presents we proclaim forever inviolable the 
right of the citizens of Alsace and Lorraine to re- 
main members of the French nation, and we swear 
on our own part, and on that of our constituents, 
their children, and their descendants, to continue 
to lay claim to it forever and by every means, in 
the face of all usurpers. 

"We are Frenchmen and wish to remain French- 
men. 

"We deny to everybody and everything on earth, 
assembly or plebiscite, the right to sell us, in totality 
or in part, be it even under the pretext of sparing 
the Nation further suffering." 

And yet, at its session of the second of March, 
the Assembly of Bordeaux adopted by a vote of 
five hundred and forty-six against one hundred 
seven, the peace preliminaries accepted at Versailles 
on the twenty-sixth of February, 1871, by virtue 
of which France ceded to Germany a fifth part of 
Lorraine, including Metz and Thionville, and all 
of Alsace except Belfort. 

After this decision of the Assembly, the deputies 
from the territory ceded made a final protest, whose 
most important terms were these: 

"Given up to foreign rule, in defiance of all jus- 
tice, and by an execrable abuse of power, we have 
a last duty to fulfill. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 205 

"We once more declare null and void a compact 
which disposes of us without our consent. 

"The demand for the return of our rights will 
forever remain open to all and several, in the form 
and in the measure that our conscience shall dictate. 

"At the moment of leaving this hall of assembly, 
where it is no longer in keeping with our dignity 
for us to sit, and in spite of the bitterness ot our 
suffering, the thought we find supreme in our 
hearts is a thought of gratitude for those who dur- 
ing six months have not ceased to defend us, and 
of unalterable attachment to our native land, from 
which we have been violently torn away.''' 

The fearless and patriotic language of their rep- 
resentatives was a faithful echo of the sentiments 
of the people of Alsace-Lorraine. They could not 
doubt that should they accept the German domina- 
tion with a good grace, their rich country would 
make one of the most precious jewels of the Ger- 
man Empire, and that Empire would accord them 
all its favors; but they had only scorn and hatred 
for everything that could strike a blow at their fi- 
delity to France. 

In order not to bow under the foreign yoke, two 
hundred thousand of the inhabitants of Alsace-Lor- 
raine expatiated themselves, and the thirteen hundred 
thousand others, whom necessity or duties from 
which it would have been culpable to escape held 
in their places, have firmly maintained the senti- 
ments they always had for the fatherland from 
which they were separated by violence. 

And for the nineteen years since their fatal an- 
nexation to Germany, what have they not suffered? 
Always under suspicion and harassed by the dis- 



206 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 

trustful and hostile authorities, how many of them 
are there who have not, — and even upon the flims- 
iest of excuses, — been arrested, imprisoned, judged, 
condemned, exiled? 

And is not their whole country submitted to a 
kind of barbarous quarantine? They cannot leave 
it except under the surveillance of the police, and 
no one can enter it without meeting obstacles which 
frequently stand in the way of the most sacred 
family relations and duties. 

The use of the French language is proscribed, 
not only in the schools and in all public enactments, 
but even in the most ordinary commercial transac- 
tions. 

The public revenues are used largely for con- 
structing fortifications, and it is hoped that 
the depreciation of property will make possible its 
acquisition at a price so low that colonies of needy 
immigrants may be established beside the too great 
number of those whose feet already sully the ground 
of four of the French departments. 

Yet, in spite of all these activities of the German 
Imperial Government, Alsace-Lorraine, impover- 
ished, oppressed, exploited for the profit of others, 
remains devoted to France, holds aloof from all 
private relations with her invaders, and keeps ever 
open the bleeding wound that binds her to the flanks 
of Germany. 

This last named country is responsible for all the 
calamities Europe has to suffer by reason of the 
unrest that disturbs her international affairs, and 
the enormous expenditures demanded by the formid- 
able armament which each of the nations believes 
necessary to its security. 



ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 207 

Sufficiently powerful, meanwhile, after her vic- 
tories over Denmark, Austria and France, Germany 
could not content herself with her glories, the rich 
indemnities she had wrung from her vanquished 
enemies, and the local marauding of her soldiery; 
she must besides make of the Vosges a German 
frontier that could be only indefinite and artificial, 
in place of the right bank of the Rhine, that great, 
wide river, which, after serving for a series of cen- 
turies as a boundary line between Celts and Teutons, 
then between their sons, the Gauls and Alemanni, 
and then between Franks and Germani, is the only 
natural and invariable barrier which can separate 
to their mutual advantage the two nations of France 
and Germany. 

For the sake of the world's peace and progress, 
this great trench which Nature has cut between na- 
tions of different origin and separate races, should 
be restored to its function. 








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